Hi. It's Lenora. I love presents. Tonight my circle group at church held our annual Christmas party. We all get excited about this because we reveal our prayer partners we've had all year long and present each other with gifts. We all love Jim Shore Christmas santas and snowmen, and I love to count how many Jim Shore boxes come around in the swap. Tonight we had thirteen! That's a record. We also have a Sneaky Santa ornament swap. That's fun because we fight over the ornaments (all in good fun) but things do get a little feisty at times! I wound up with a beach snowman and Santa with a surfboard. Both are perfect for me since my husband and I hope to retire in Florida in a few years. (And no one stole them, thankfully.)
We had great food (bread pudding for dessert)and so much fun. But I think the best part was just laughing with friends. I had to give the blessing and I almost cried because I thanked God for His blessings during what has been a difficult and wonderful year (the bad always comes with the good, doesn't it.) It's been a tough years with aging parents and teenagers going into adulthood and all of us caught somewhere in the middle. But we shoulder on. Or as I heard on the radio (Jimmy Buffet) Breathe in, breathe out and keep going. That's what we do because we have the support of friends we can trust and we have the presence of the Lord to carry us through. Life is full of suspenseful moments where we lay awake at night wondering what will happen next. And it is in that quiet time of the wee hours that God is so near. And that is the best present of all--knowing that God is always present in our life. While we love writing those cliffhangers and we create obstacles for our characters to overcome, we know that the real life obstacles are sometimes just as scary as anything in a book. So we give thanks for the good and ask God to see us through the bad. And deep in the night as Christmas draws near, we find that quiet sweet time to feel at peace, surrounded by our books, our friends, (our shoes!) and the love that keeps us going. And a little bread pudding doesn't hurt either.
2 comments:
And this also shows an example of another of God's gifts to us, wonderful friends. Even during this hectic time of the year, I always take time to reflect on how all of my friends have been woven throughout the fabic of this year of my life. Thank God for friends, fellowship and of course bread pudding.
Thanks for your kind comments.
Now I need some more of that bread pudding. Busy time, but blessed time!
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