It's about HOPE.

This is just a reminder that I need at this time of year, and maybe some of you out there need it, too. My brother-in-law DAN (OK, is this mention #5?) and my sister, Kendra, received this awesome sign for Christmas, and it is really what the Christmas season--and life on this earth--is all about. It's all about HOPE. Yes, Christmas is about joy, and peace, and love, and good tidings, and new life, and beauty, and noel, and......but the bottom line: Jesus was born to give a lost world HOPE. Hope that supercedes by far anything this world has to offer. Hope that surpasses any of our expectations. A hope that often is beyond what we could envision, that makes possible the things that this world and its experts deem impossible. A hope that we as humans really can't fully wrap our minds around, so we are called to just trust and hold on for the ride, because God promises that it will be an awesome, awesome ride when He is at the healm. So, yes, experience joy this Christmas. Yes, spread peace in any way that you can. Yes, sing and speak glad tidings and love your fellow man. But please, please, please be mindful that Christmas is first about HOPE. A hope that did not stay in the manger in Bethlehem. But a hope that is eternal and alive in you and in me. A hope that God manifests in our lives even today, in 2006, when we are so busy and challenged and often forgetful of Him. So, cling to that hope in these days in the new year. It is the truth of Christmas and every day the whole year through!