Skip to main content

Be ye Kind



I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving. Ours was good, the guys worked at the farm, my mom made Thanksgiving dinner, and I headed up there about 11 and spent some time with her as she finished up. We all gathered at her house at noon, ate together, then the guys went back to work on Robert's house. And I went to my office to finish a project that I had slated to be done by Thanksgiving, happily, I got it finished and we were all home by 5pm.

Yesterday, Andrew and I went Black Friday shopping. We set a new record for staying out, leaving the house at 3:30 am and pulling in the drive at 6 pm. It was a good day, I got lots of bargains and lots of Christmas shopping done. We headed to Evansville, and even though a main reason was they had all the stores I needed to get to, the most important reason to me was that when you go to Evansville, everyone is so KIND. Robert and I noticed this the first time we went down there, and it is truly my favorite place to Black Friday shop.

Ephesians 4:32 says,  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.


We are coming into the time of year when everyone has a tendency to be kinder in the day-ins, day-outs of life, and this is one of those things I wish were a year around thing, and not the main reason it feels like Christmas. I made the realization one time that everyone gets super annoyed about stores putting Christmas decorations out in September. I had to ask myself if it really upset me, or if the world would be a different place if we could live what Christmas means to us, all year long. Part of me, in the back of my mind, said, I was just irritated that the commercialized Christmas could take precedent over the true meaning of Christmas--and whose fault is that? In my case, I blame me. We have things in our lives that we refer to as, "feeling like Christmas all year long". I am going to start working harder at making people say that about me, "Being around Mindy is like having Christmas all year long". Wouldn't that be a testimony? And if I am showing Christ's love, it would be like the true meaning of Christmas. I often wonder how much we as Christians could really change the world if we just did it instead of talking about it.

So, this week, as my normal challenges, try extra hard to make people remember that Christmas is about God's love. He loved us so much that He sent His son to die for us. I remember just days after Robert was born, holding him as a baby. I couldn't imagine God sending Him here with that picture already in his head of Him dying a horrific death on the cross. It is humbling just to be the mother of a son when you think about that. I am very likely to bring this up the again the week after Christmas. As we will all be making New Year's resolutions. Being more kind could be a resolution that, though it may take some work, is very doable.

I am also inviting everyone to a 4 week Bible Study that I found online. I love Max Lucado's take on life, and I have the new book Because of Bethlehem that I plan to start this week, along with his FREE advent Bible study.

Registration is HERE

Hope you all have a wonderful week and a Blessed start to this Christmas season.

And of course, I have waited for almost a year to share this video. We don't have cable or satellite tv, we have Roku, and I haven't found it on there yet, but if you have never seen this movie, try to find it- The Heart of Christmas. It is sad, but a true story about a family and a community in Washington, Illinois.  One night, I was on my way home from Robinson and was listening to a Matthew West interview; it was about the movie, and this song, but it was that night that I became a Matthew West fan for life, so I will never forget it.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Perseverance

 Good morning beautiful people! Happy Saturday! I hope your day is filled with lots of good things and if you are going through a trial right now, I hope you can find one good thing to learn today. If nothing else, know that God is working something through you.  This Saturday finds my house getting ready to paint our family room. I am not a great painter, thank the Lord, that He sent me a man who is. Andrew may not love to paint but he makes things look so professionally done and I am always excited about what the end result is going to be. Bless his heart, I love how he goes along with my ideas, especially when he knows it means more work for him. This all started because before we had the roof replace, we had damage done to the ceiling and one wall in our family room. It was on my list for him to get that fixed and he did but then I realized, it had been 20 years since we had painted and I rag rolled the paint so I know if we just tried to paint the repair, we would always ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Temptation

 Happy Saturday! We made it once again! What is going on at your house today? We have a workday and I am dreading the work but excited about the possibilities of what we are going to get done. Our carport is a disaster, I have some touchup work to do on the paint in the family room, I bought a new table that needs put together and I want cup hooks put in my coffee cabinet. Praying we get it all done today! This week's Bible study fits in really well with trying to be healthy, we are talking about temptation. We are ready for James 1, verses 12-15. 12  Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. 13  When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;  14  but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.  15...
Post a Comment
Read more

Biting Your Tongue

 Good Saturday morning! It is a little before 5 and I have a lot going today because I didn't get everything done this week, so here I am. I have my list and if everything goes as planned, I should be able to relax about 6 tonight, but if it goes as planned, I also should have most of tomorrow afternoon to rest before another big week. I got a kick out of a recent Lowe's commercial I saw where all these guys were getting their Saturday projects wiped out so they could have their Sunday's. Those Sundays that all I have to do between church services is my normal getting ready for the week stuff (clean out my car, my purse, lay out my week's clothes, make sure the car has gas, and is washed) those are really nice days. And hopefully tomorrow will be one of them. This week we are talking about the tongue. One of the main causes of sin, in my opinion. What would a world be if people never said mean things to one another? What would the world be if people never said things th...
Post a Comment
Read more