October 23, 2021
As president of the ministry, Words of Worth, Inc., I am excited to announce the publication of a perpetual advent devotional entitled, Socially Distant, Spiritually Close. Co-authored with Words of Worth board member, fellow Bible Study leader, and friend, Susan Weber, this book was inspired by the pandemic of 2020, which changed many things in our lives, not the least of which was how we celebrated Christmas. Words and phrases such as, “unprecedented” and “social distancing”, crept into our language and became very commonplace. The…
December 23, 2016
Do you struggle every Christmas with finding good and perfect gifts along with the perfect balance of gift giving? Do you struggle with what to give to the person who has everything, or how much to give to express how much someone means to you? How do you give the good and perfect gift without breaking the bank and without getting caught up in materialism and consumerism?
Every year I struggle with this. At least every year until last year when I saw what I thought was the perfect…
December 20, 2013
Christmas already? How can it already be the last weekend before Christmas? Wasn’t it just yesterday we were watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade?
Here in America, the Christmas season is offically “kicked off” by the annual Macy’s parade. For the last 87 years the Emmy award winning tradition (there are Emmys for parades? Who knew?) has been seen by 3.5 million people in New York City and an additional 50 million via satellite and cable television. The floats and bands are always exciting but the part of the parade people anticipate…
December 6, 2013
Last Sunday was the first day of December and the first Sunday of Advent. It appeals to the logical side of my brain for this to happen simultaneously. I was anticipating the lighting of the Advent candle at the morning church service and I was not disappointed. All five candles stood majestically near the altar and the reading that accompanied the lighting was from the book of Isaiah. How appropriate.
What I didn’t anticipate the next morning in my personal Advent devotional book was a Psalm about Solomon’s kingship and a…
November 7, 2013
It happened on Tuesday, October 29th. I know for sure the time and date because I left Bible study and headed straight to Wal-mart to get the “stuff” to make my daughter’s Halloween costume. (If you are curious, she went as a Pinterest board. Cheap! Easy! Adorable!) After gathering the supplies, I had a momentary surge of holiday goodwill and thought I would trek across the store to get the ingredients to make sugar cookies. (If you are curious, it was a bag mix and canned icing. Cheap! Easy! What…
December 1, 2012
Even though Christmas seems to start earlier every year, with the tinsel and colored lights sharing shelf space with the Halloween candy (sigh…) we seem to always be so surprised when the calendar turns to December 1st. Yesterday, I heard three different people exclaim, “December starts tomorrow! How did that happen?” I had to resist the urge to respond, “Same way it always happens!”
But if the arrival of December 1st is shocking, then brace yourself: tomorrow is December 2nd and that means it’s also the first Sunday in…
