Move outside

Move outside your present circumstances if this Christmas season is a melancholy one for you.

It is a difficult time of year for people who have lost loved ones or find themselves alone.

Try to concentrate on the blessings you do have like

shelter, food, a pet, an old friend or make a new one

by serving at the local rescue mission to those less fortunate.

You don't have to wait til Christmas Eve or Christmas Day

to extend yourself to people...

to bring a smile, a loving touch, a listening ear

or a secret santa gift.

Spend time with God in the Word.

Ask the Holy Spirit to minister unto you as you dwell together.
Peace will come.

Sing!

"A meaningful life will not be found in the next job or the nextcar.

The way you get meaning in your life is to devote yourself

to helping others and creating something that gives you purpose."

Morrie Schwartz in Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

"In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner

you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus,

that He Himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Acts 20-35

Be blessed ** Be a blessing

Alexander Solzhenitsyn - Dec 11, 1918 - August 3, 2008

When I read of the death of one of my favorite authors, memories rushed my mind and heart remembering his book which I read 46 years ago....

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

was a book that changed my thinking and enlarged my world view in a profound way. Though quite trivial in most of my pursuits at age 19, I did love to read and One Day In the Life was the Book of the Month Club's offering. An unassuming little book physically, it was to become a classic, earning the author a Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 1970.

Both this work and Gulag Archipelago were sobering, eye-opening, sad, depressing, truthful and shameful. I learned of the suffering inside Communist prison camps via this brilliant author who knew first-hand of such a horrific experience. While he said we cannot really understand that which we have not endured, I do believe his words imprinted strongly on my heart and helped open my eyes to conditions in the world so different than my own.

In one of his poems he writes:"Bless you, prison, for having been in my life." "God of the Universe! I believe again! Though I renounced You, You were with me!"

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus - I Thessalonians 5:18