Merry CHRISTmas friends...

As I ponder the true meaning of Christmas I find myself in awe of the wonder of it all.

Jesus, the Son of God, God Himself chose to leave the throne of Heaven in all His glory to be born a babe... not even in an earthly palace of grandeur but in a lowly manger... He came for me, He came for you, He came for love.... To live a perfect life, always loving, always humble.

Every thing He did, He did for us... Every thing He did, He did for the love of each and every one of us... One time I was talking to Him and I said, "Father, all I have to give you is me." He spoke to me softly and said, "My dear child, You are all I want..." That is true for each of us. The One and only true God isn't in to religion... He wants a personal relationship with you. He wants you to know Him, to love Him, to spend time with Him. The amazing thing is that when you do He blesses you for it.

Happy Birthday Jesus, my Lord, my Savior, my God, my Friend.... Thank You for loving me, for being my hope, my joy, my strength, my provider, my shelter, my comfort, my redeemer.

So many of you that visit my blog I have had the pleasure and honor of getting to know. Some of you I have become close to and am thankful for our friendships. I just want to thank you all for all of your kind words, your encouragement, your support, your prayers, your laughter, your friendship. Thank you all for making my day brighter as I visit your blogs and you visit mine.

I pray your Christmas will be CHRIST filled... that it will be a time of love, laughter, joy and precious memories in the making.

Merry Christmas friends...

This is one of my favorite stories that Paul Harvey tells each Christmas... I am sure you have all heard it but I wanted to share it with you...

The Man and the Birds by Paul Harvey
The man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man. "I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service. Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound...Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud...At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window. Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them...He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms...Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn. And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me...That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. "If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm...to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand." At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells - Adeste Fidelis - listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.