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.