December 22, 2012 Greetings My Friend, So Christmas is front and center of my thoughts. For the past several years I find I can’t think about Christmas without thinking about Easter as well. Our Savior came into the world as we come into the world, a baby born of a woman just like we all came into the world. I marvel each time I say my prayers that Jesus started life like us, died and had every emotion we go through. We all don’t go through the exact same situations but we all are happy, sad, angry etc. As I embrace my faith journey I find a lot of comfort in knowing Jesus knows what it is like to live in a body, to experience each and every emotion we all have. As I think on a faith journey I also realize that relationships are not a one way affair. It takes two people talking, calling, visiting and interacting with each other for a relationship to work. It is the same with God. In the past I knew how to pray when life was hurling bombs at me and then I did not pray until the next bomb hit me. As I have entered into this journey of faith I find that connecting with God on a daily basis I find that I am in a relationship and when the journey gets rough these days I know that “this too shall pass.” For me praying, reading my Bible and even thinking “What would Jesus do?” often helps me to stay close to God. If I am not doing these things then I begin to make up in my mind what I want God to be, you know “A loving God wouldn’t” type of thinking. We can’t know God if we never seek God except when we want something. Prior to my faith journey in earnest I often found myself making God into what I believed He should be. You know “A loving God would never….” type of thinking. We have to talk to God to listen to God and by reading the Bible I find I begin to know what God likes. I also find I can’t just read the Bible, I need to ask God each and every time to open my eyes and heart to the lesson God wants me to learn. When I prepare my heart to hear God then I will. I will often read the same lesson a few times and learn a new thing so I think I will be reading the Bible till my eyes give out or I die. When my eyes give out then I will more than likely listen to daily Bible readings. My goal in life is to walk daily with God. As I said earlier I can’t think about Christmas anymore without thinking of Jesus dying on the cross and His resurrection. When I put the cross into the birth I find I am more grateful for the gift I have been given. For me I tend to pray through each of the last hours of Jesus’ life and in that I find a deep love from God. God provided for our salvation and I marvel. He provided His Son and Jesus came of His own accord. I don’t know about you but even though my son in his mid-thirties I would not want to see harm in any form come to him. So I marvel at God providing a way for us to be in relationship with Him and atoning for our stupidity. I also have learned as I read the Bible how God had the Israelites remember all that He had done for them. For me that is a marvelous lesson. Some people journal those moments but for me I tend to remember my moments as a part of my prayers. I call them my thankful moments and I try to remember the times where God showed up and helped me. One of the things I am going back to a lot lately is when I was a child I had a big mouth and told everything on anyone. I knew that this was frowned on but I did it anyway. As I look back I see that God laid that on my heart and frankly I was spared a lot of sexual abuse. I did suffer physical and emotional abuse but sexual abuse was not added to my struggles. These days I don’t have the strong need to tell “everything” to “everyone”. So gone for the most part are the days where I remember my hurts and replay them in my minds eye. My goal these days is to remember when God was beside me when I needed Him the most. Like the time I pulled out in front of a car too soon or the hugs I have felt through the years even the times I was sent to the porch to watch nature unfold in front of me when I hurt so deeply. As I remember I find strength to live the current struggle and I know that that struggle will end and I will see a happier moment. I don’t try to pretend that life wasn’t that bad as well. I try to remember the awful stuff in a general way. It was there, it happened and pretending doesn’t ease the pain. These days though I give that to God and God comforts me and even has me go out and touch someone for Him. So I remember the fists thrust against my body but I am not angry. I don’t hate my abuser, I really don’t. I don’t want to be best friends and when I see him at family functions I tend to recall the angry face he presented often but overall I forgive this man and even Dad. Mom well I have indifference no hatred for sure. I puzzle that I can’t seem to move past the indifference but I am grateful I don’t hate Mom. I know Mom’s job in life was very hard. She went to work to support our family when Dad had polio. Mom made sure we had a roof over our heads and food on the table. Mom stuck by Dad when it would have been easier to walk away. So I have a lot of respect for Mom. Yup it is Christmas again. Have you walked through the Bible and found Jesus? Is it time. May God bless you and keep you, make His face shine upon you. Love Janet