January 2025

By Rev. Lisa Abb

I am having a very weird Christmas. As I write this, it is Friday, December 27^th and I have only had Christmas with Hank.  My family got sick on Christmas day and so we haven’t exchanged gifts. Christmas day we ate a frozen pizza and watched old movies. As I said, it was weird compared to what I expected to happen.

But the good side is that I still have two Christmas celebrations to attend! So, Christmas is going to continue in my house into the New Year. And that is what God wants after all. For Christmas to continue not just into January, not just until Easter, but always.  

Those gifts of Hope and Peace and Joy and Love that we talked about give us the tools we need to have a heart of Christmas that lasts forever. But just as the snow melts and time goes on, we forget the special warmth created by the most wonderful time of year. We allow our routines to set in and we put our heads down and get on with life.

I invite you this year to keep your head up towards that star in the North. Keep your head up and your heart full of those gifts that God gave you without any strings. Use them to create a life of love and peace that reveals to the world that you are a child of God.

And when things get prickly, difficult, and trying, take a breath and a moment with God.  Ask Him again to fill you with those gifts so you can carry the Heart of Christmas with you always. God Bless you all. 

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ …in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ… have a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:3-14