This Christmas, I still find myself walking in the cold, searching for baby Jesus lying in a manger. In my youth, and all throughout my teenage years and well into my late twenties I use to love walking through the snow in my town. Fortunately there were many Catholic Churches that displayed beautiful mangers outside with beautiful representations of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Three Wise Kings, and a lamb.
It was one of my personal and favorite past times! Something special about the cold fresh clean air that energizes my senses. and I just have to be out in God's realm, So I would walk for miles to Saint Andrews, Saint Mary's, at the onset of the very first snow storm of the season. Being ever so watchful of the silence, along with my breadth as I exhaled into the dark night. It always felt so liberating. Just being with Jesus, and listening to him through the silence, and being in the snow, wearing snow boots, and forever layered in winter gear, always felt so right!
Much more than that I had within me a heart and love for Jesus!
I was very fortunate to have those beautiful experiences and memories just Jesus and I. They were so private, so intimate, and yet beautiful. I became very centered upon Him, the way it should be! Tonight during my walk it was about 42 degrees, the temperature is expected to dip as low as 26 that is pretty cold for the sunshine state! I was blessed to find a manger at our neighbors house, and suddenly the manger came alive again in me, minus the snow!
You and I have this wonderful opportunity tonight to prepare our hearts in welcoming Jesus! Let us do it right and be very attentive to the son of God. I think that God truly appreciates the fact that we are engaged heavily engaged in our faith walk. We don't take our faith or our Lord for granted, instead we anticipate with great excitement His coming! He comes in history, and mystery, and again at our death. As he came for my father this past February. as Christians we have the meeting with Jesus to look forward to when we all die. But tonight we are all living in Him already. And yet we want to take that extra step and measure if you will and invite Him in, a little deeper.
Our hearts yearn for Jesus! And when he arrives we celebrate in a very big way His birth! My Mom and Dad told me I was the greatest gift they had received on Christmas Day when they brought me home all dressed up in red. God gave my mother and my father a daughter. A woman of great faith. And then God gave them a son, my brother, an amazing artist! Jesus has blessed my immediate family exponentionally. And that is why, I have chosen to share my faith, and my great devotion of writing /creating an atmosphere that is real about Jesus!
It is a great privilege for me to share my faith and my Lord with all of you. May He make your Christmas, Holy and Righteous In His Sight! In closing I want to say hello to Monika, Marcin, Milenka, I love and miss my coffee partner from Poland!
Jesus and Mary is with us!
Merry Christmas To all my special friends and family all over the world!
