The last of our family is in the air headed back to their own home. We arrived at the airport at 3:30 am to catch their very early flight. I am having a late start to my day but that doesn’t matter. It was a glorious time with everyone including our Savior and Lord for without Jesus I’d hate to think what our family might be like. Jesus is the foundation for living and His Word is the foundation for the way to live. How grateful I am for Him and this family I get to call mine!

Yesterday morning I had a lengthy conversation with a couple of my daughters and my granddaughter and her husband regarding one’s spirit. I asked them what their spirit means to them? It turned into a conversation of depth, but the interesting piece is that no one truly knows one’s spirit. I’m not sure God intends for this to be the case for we were all created with our spirit, but it seems our flesh is SO dominate that we automatically conclude without any thought that we live by flesh alone. We all know we have spirit, but the strength of a surrendered is something we know little about other than we are to do this.

I write this because when we battle in our flesh we almost always lose and we always lose over time. When we battle in surrender so that The Holy Spirit fights for us, we win because He is always a WINNER. This we know, yet, this we know little about. I have no more understanding than this, but I want to continue learning in this area. God never quits shedding LIGHT in areas He wants us to learn.

The journey does continue but does it ever take a huge turn in the road when so many are constantly in the house! Everything except for where I sleep makes big adjustments. Well, it is for a week and it does build lasting memories for the kids and grandkids. Someday they will be doing the same for all of their families. I just have to add that Jesus is the foundation and I love and praise Him for this wonderful group of people I get to call family!

Merry Christmas! The day has arrived. All is calm, not all is not quite bright yet, but hopefully all is bright within you and your spirit. As I was journaling this morning and asking Jesus what He wanted me to know from Him for today, He reminded me that much of the world celebrates this day. However, the root of the celebration is mightily lost for He alone is the only reason for CHRISTmas. Each one of us is responsible to continue to pass the heritage we have in Christ down to the next generation helping them see the importance of dong the same as they mature. The world may turn Christmas into a celebration of staying home and giving gifts, but we who know the truth of today, can be sure and let the true reason for Christmas stay alive.

The expression of love that started so long ago from God to us through Jesus Christ’s birth is nothing less than amazing. Lets make sure our kids and grandkids know to embrace this today!

Well, the kids are here. The house is full of “guests”, family and today all of the local family will be coming in also. Bedtime didn’t happen until 1:45 am, but who cares about that? We are all together and that is what makes grandpa and grandma very happy!

There will be no counseling appointments this week with all of the family here. As I was praying over the prayer list, I couldn’t help but sense Christ’s arms of grace surrounding each one. The names of those hurting and coming for help are embraced with Christ’s loving arms. I pray they will know this and sense it like they never have before. It is such a marvelous act of love, God literally sending Himself to us through the life of Christ and offering to us His Own Spirit to dwell in us if we will only ask Christ into our lives while we are in our flesh.

This LOVE of God is simply beyond our ability to comprehend. Yet, I can only be humbly grateful for it. God wants us with Him and He has gone to this extent to show us just how genuine this love is!

I sit in front of the computer wondering just what I should write this morning? What keeps coming to mind is the fact our Oklahoma family is flying in at midnight tonight. Two of us are driving in to get them at the airport. The family has grown so one vehicle won’t any longer carry the people and luggage. It is well past my bedtime but that won’t keep this grandpa from staying awake for this reason!

I had a most unexpected counseling session yesterday morning. A lady had come for a couple of sessions due to her marriage. I had asked her to bring her husband is he’d be willing to come. Well, he came. The angry and belittling man was now present but didn’t seem like a “monster”. As we got into the session where I had them complete a personality profile, much of their differences began to get definition which easily outlined their divisive marriage. The session went longer than intended but they were ok with it and I didn’t have any other one following it. We are far from done, but it was so nice to see them smiling and even laughing at their behaviors with one another. So often our differences are appreciated in our early years but they grow into thorns when we begin to turn “selfish”. Once this is brought to light it is so much easier to move forward with genuine reconciliation.

God wants to complete us in our marriage with these differences. Satan, on the other hand wants to turn them into thorns. When we can go back to respecting our mate’s differences and see how Satan has manipulated this, we can wake up and turn it around. Our God Reigns!