After Christmas.....

The waiting is over.....the parties, lunches, dinners are over....the gifts given and appreciated.....what remains now is.....the joy and peace that family and friends bring you thanks to The One who brings us together. 

What's left after Christmas Day is what really matters: Him...in our lives.

 

My prayer at this time of the year is a bit different.  I just want the person reading this to be happy. Because friends are really the fruit cake of life --- some nutty, some soaked in alcohol, some sweet, but mix them together and they're my friends. 

That's why I want them all to be happy.  

At Christmas all you hear is people talking about what they got or bought. But what I really wish everyone in this holy time is that: 

= I want people who are sick with no cure to be able to be cured..... 

= I want children with no families to be adopted...... 

= I want people to never have to worry about food, shelter & heat..... 

= I want peace and love for everyone! 

Now, let's see if you loving, caring people will re-post this on whatever and wherever you write... Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, My Space, or plain e-mail ....I think I know you will.... you are a CARING lot!! ♥

A time of Anticipation.....

We are at the start of the time of anticipation, Advent, when we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ in our “world”.  I am not talking about His being born again on Christmas….that was a one time event that happened about 2011 years ago....but of His coming again into our lives today.  It is a time of anticipation because we know for a fact that He will come if we were to ask Him to.  The trouble is that all too often we sit back and let things happen. 

We may, in fact, have been born Christians because of the circumstances or the country where we were born or because we inherited our family’s beliefs but does that make us real Christians?  I read this joke comment lately that sums it all up:  If I was born a pig does that then make me a hamburger?

The main problem, it would seem, is that people are nowadays too time conscious and therefore haven’t got the time to wait….especially on God.  It is as if we expect Him to deliver everything we ask for right now.  A perfect reflection of our times.  

And if He doesn’t deliver.... then we dispose of Him as we do everything else.  Discard!

The short four weeks of Advent should teach us to wait on God in the sure knowledge that He is coming again for a meeting with Us!  This alone therefore should give us a sense of hope and comfort, especially when we are down.  Handel immortalised Isaiah’s words when he composed “Comfort Ye my people” in the knowledge that we really could live a whole day on a compliment because we actually do live in great isolation. 

On a collective and personal level we need someone to look after us. We understand (blame?) the "hurts" that we recognise in our life as coming from frustrations of sorts and harp so much on them to make them seem worse.  But we are then astounded to learn that our God will never allow us to enter an alley where there is no exit.  God’s word…and that complment from our friends…..become our experience of faith. 

My friend Carmen recently told me that faithfulness brings forth great results, even though we may not see it. Even the Saints, though they did not see the sign of victory right away, did not waver in the work that God had called them to do.   "God is perfect" she told me. "God, being who He is, cannot cease to be what He is, and being what He is He cannot act out of character with Himself. Only as we have complete assurance that He is faithful may we live in peace and look forward to the life to come. Every heart can make its own application of this truth.  The tempted, the anxious, the fearful, the discouraged may all find new hope and in the knowledge that our Heavenly Father is faithful."

She concluded: “Whatever the Lord places in each of our hands this coming year, one hand should be open in trust to the One who loves us most, and, with the other hand, let it be ready to embrace this wonderful gift.”

As I was saying....an apology of sorts!

"Cassandra"

In my early days in journalism  I was, among other things, a columnist (you could say we were the forerunners of today's bloggers since we wrote (or filled) a "column" in the newspaper on a regular basis as blogs are written and uploaded today!!).  One of the quotes that has remained with me since then is "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted". This is formally ascribed to columnist 

Sir William Neil Connor (1909 - 1967)

 known as "Cassandra", who wrote for the London "Daily Mirror". Since he had stopped writing his column to serve as a soldier in World War Two, at war's end, when he recommenced his first column, he wrote his famous verse: "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted" (by the war)...... 

Like many another British journalist, "Cassandra" always put himself in the middle of every story as I often like to do too, and today, as I pick up this blog after so many months of seeming inertia, I find myself obliged to start off a la "Cassandra". So.......
.

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by my self imposed break, the blog - and the blogger - are more than alive and well.  Hooray.  I must apologise for not delivering what I had promised late in 2010, that's a bigger, better blog.  But life has its way of doing - and changing - things.  These past few months have not been inert at all and two family marriages have also taken place in my house - a son and a daughter now happily settled into a new life; at the same time my marketing communications business has seemingly stopped its downward trend and is now plateauing (before rising again?); and so much more as well. I've been busy! 

But it's good to be back after all.  So what was I saying the last time I blogged?  Oh yes, how can there be Christmas without Christ in it.  Always a very valid point of argument because today not everyone seems to connect Christmas time with a very special religious commemoration. Pity. Though I doubt if, in reality, the good Lord worries too much about it all.  He's used to us turning our backs on Him throughout history that He's become immune to our antics.  It was for the same reason that He came into the world, to bring us back to His Father.  To open our eyes to see the wonderful things that had been prepared for us and which we ignored completely, preferring the short-lived excitement of what the world has to offer instead of the eternal option of living with the Father in His mansion with many rooms, as Jesus Himself told us.  

What always amazes me in all this is that all God wants from us is to realise that He just wants to love us with all His might so that we, in turn can love Him back too.  Not a bad deal if you think about it, and yet we just turn our backs on Him for whatever the reasons we think fit.

Thanks for reading.  Back soon....after the break!!