“……more than gifts: Gift Giver….”
Dear friends,
Greetings in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
December is the last and busiest month of the year, while January is a month of new beginnings. They are not only months in which friends, families and relatives get together to look back and celebrate what they have accomplished, but they are also months that people use to think about new opportunities, new choices, and decisions.
It is also important to remember those who do not have anyone to celebrate with. A time we remember that although we have plenty, there the people who have nothing. Some will be enduring their first Christmas having buried a loved one or their first Christmas since fleeing a war-torn country. Christmas is a wonderful time for some and equally a traumatic time for others.
This is a time for gratitude. From families that are welcoming new-born blessings into the world, to patients who are finally pain-free after long bouts of treatment. All can sit and give thanks to our Creator at this time of year. Give thanks for our abilities and celebrate God’s given gifts (our health, wealth, friends, families, talents, abilities, intelligence, security, freedom, nature, etc..) to humanity.
While, at times, Christmas has become a season of buying, giving, and receiving materials gifts, Christianity encourages us to put our focus on the true Spirit and Heart of Christmas: “The Gift-Giver, Jesus Christ” in our personal lives. As we leave 2022 and enter 2023, may the Gift-Giver bless us all together, with Him, in Him and through Him, we shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”