Thanksgiving, now known as Grey Thursday and now the infamous Black Friday are behind us. That leave us only twenty eight days (as I write this article) of Christmas shopping left before the big event so don’t slow down! If you do you will never get caught back up because besides the shopping there is so much going on at this time of year: Christmas programs, office parties, baking and more baking, making sure all the friends and relatives get visited, and by the way did you get your Christmas cards out on time? The Post Office has a deadline if you want those cards to get to where they need to get going by the time Christmas gets here!
In the past few years we are starting to get more Christmas cards after Christmas. We still get plenty of cards before Christmas but for those who still send and yet miss the big dead line we thank you. We thank you because even though we love to hear from you we know that time is a value and a precious commodity at this time of the year. We thank you for making some decisions that gave priority to the things you needed to do and had to get done. We hope those priorities included your worship and adoration of the true Christmas story that we find in the Gospels. We hope those priorities included your family, loved ones and the person next door who you very rarely see. We hope you took the time to make someone who is struggling this year to make their Christmas a day that God had intended; a day of blessing and thanksgiving.
What God did at this time of year is so mind boggling that the only thing that can compare is Easter morning. Christmas as in anything that God does is done out of love, but love takes time. So during this year’s festivities take time to show love and of course to be loved in the way God loves us all. Maybe the Christmas cards didn’t get in the mail in time to be delivered by December 24th, but they did get delivered! And we all got to remember love is never late because true love is always in God’s time not ours! So go out and have the most loving Christmas of your life! Diana, Will and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!
See you on Sunday!
Rev. Dennis Hopes