It's Christmas - Part Two

Though posted together... these were DAYS apart. :) So read the one below me first!

It took a while… but I am there. I knew eventually that I would miss writing and need to come back to it. I knew eventually that journaling would no longer be enough for me. Something in me needs to share what God shares with me.

It’s been an incredible year for me. Every year I name my year. I pray about it for December and into January. Usually by New Year’s Eve I have it pegged. Last year - 2008 - was the year of Faithfulness, Forgiveness, and Freedom. As He always does, God has lived up to His promise. There have been so many ways that God’s has shown Himself faithful that I cannot even begin to put them into this post. I sometimes really do feel like the Israelites because I can forget God’s faithfulness easily when things aren’t going as I think they should.

Earlier this week I hit a point of desperation with Christmas after going into a local store. It was the music and its lack of Christmas’ true meaning that hurt my spirit… I don’t know a better way to say it.

Well today at lunch I needed to go back into there to look for something I thought I had seen. Would you believe it? The very same song was playing. Now here is the cool - when God teaches you something… He likes to affirm it moment! You ready? 

As I was walking around I heard the rest of this “song.” See somehow I dashed out without hitting the end. So I missed the point when the person in the song tells the other person that they have missed what Christmas is really about! I kid… you not!

So what spiritual lesson did Gina learn in the Dollar Store today? When you are at your most desperate point and things look hopeless (hopeless really does describe my outlook earlier this week), remember that God hasn’t finished the story yet!

God is all about second chapters. He even wrote a second testament to follow the first. He’s about second chances. He’s about happy endings. So if you are entering Christmas in a desperate state my reminder to you is that God is Faithful, Forgiving, and all about Freedom.

Off for now.

Have a Merry Christmas (if I don’t write again for a bit I want to make SURE I said it!)