Merry Christmas

For this Christmas posting I felt lead to share the story of my favorite Christmas. I have to be honest, our Father has allowed me to have a very blessed life and most, no that isn’t true, every Christmas, has been a good one. But when I was like ten years old, I don’t remember my exact age, I experienced Grace and Love in a way that has stuck with me to this very day. The Lord has used what I felt and saw that day to drive each and every Christmas of my life.

What made that Christmas so awesome was that our Father brought my Uncle Bill over for breakfast. Uncle Bill was my dad’s older brother and he had a serious and I mean serious drinking problem. Alcohol was killing him and eventually did. His addiction had destroyed his marriage, caused unbelievable harm to my cousins, and had created a lot of heartache amongst all of the family. He had moved in with my Grandmother that year and I just remember there being a lot of uneasiness about it.

But that Christmas morning my parents allowed Uncle Bill to come over for breakfast. We had country ham, I love salty country ham. I remember sitting around the kitchen table and feeling Divine Grace at work. It was such a powerful feeling and more than any other event in my life showed me what Christmas is all about. Love covers a multitude of sin and our Father allowed His Love to flow through my parents that morning and I can still feel it to this day. My Uncle didn’t deserve Grace. I don’t think that he asked for it, but yet our Father used my parents to freely give it. Just as He did with Jesus on the Cross.  

I have made Your Name known to them and revealed Your character and Your very Self, and I will continue to make [You] known, that the love which You have bestowed upon Me may be in them [felt in their hearts] and that I [Myself] may be in them. John 17:26

Merry Christmas! May God cause and use all of us to freely bestow the peace of freedom from sin on all that we come into contact with. Freely we have received His Grace and Freely we will be used to give it.