A Timeless Recipe For A Happy Holiday

If you have any:

Contrary to popular opinion, everyone has some quality, ability, talent, passion which activated, would make the world a better place to live. What you have to offer others at this time of year will bring you and the person that you bless more happiness than you will ever find by pursuing “happiness all by itself.

q Encouragement

q Comfort

q Fellowship from the Spirit

q Tenderness and compassion

Then make my joy complete by:

What we have been given is a responsibility. God will look for an accounting from us someday. We have been blessed to be a blessing. Pass it on!

q Being like-minded

q Having the same love

q Being one in spirit & purpose

Our thoughts determine our actions

The way that we think is always revealed by our actions. We can profess with our lips all that we may wish but our lives tell the true story. Our actions come from our thoughts.

Proper motivation – Why you do what you do.

Proper perspective – How you see other people

Proper Priorities – Balancing our lives.

I’d like to see everyone of us squeeze the season for all that it is worth. This could be the last Christmas that some of you have to spend with loved ones. I’d like to believe it would be possible for your hearts to rejoice this year and not to be burdened by depression or regret or marred by division or irreconciled relationships. God has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That means that it is both our business how men get along with God and how they get along with men.

If I Knew

If I knew it would be the last time that I'd see you fall asleep, I would tuck you in more tightly and pray the Lord your soul to keep.

If I knew it would be the last time that I would see you walk out the door, I would give you a hug and kiss and call you back for one more.

If I knew it would be the last time I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise, I would video tape each action and word, so I could play them back day after day.

If I knew it would be the last time, I could spare an extra minute or two, to stop and say that "I love you," Instead of assuming that you KNOW I do.

If I knew it would be the last time I would be there to share yourday, well, I'm sure you'll have so many more, so I can let this one slip away.

For surely there's always tomorrow to make up for an oversight, and we always get a second chance to make everything all right.

There will always be another day to say our "I love you's" And certainly there's another chance to say our "Anything I can do's."

But just in case I might be wrong, and today is all I get, I'd like to say how much I love you and hope we never forget. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike, And today may be the last chance you get to hold your loved ones tight.

So, if you're waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today? For if tomorrow never comes, you'll surely regret the day,

That you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a hug, a kiss, And you were to busy to grant someone, what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today, whisper in their ear, Tell them how much you love them, And that you'll always hold them

dear.

Take the time to say "I'm sorry" "please forgive me" "thank you" or "It's ok"

Posted From [Andychap's The Funnies]

Christmas Lite

As we approach another Christmas season we will once again remind ourselves as Christians of all the right reasons that we celebrate. But will that reminder actually make a difference in the final outcome? It’s even more difficult as parents to perpetuate the value that we see in Christmas in the midst of all the gift giving

It may be more blessed to give than receive but most of us would prefer to be a little less blessed at Christmas.

Anticipate the times that you will experience depression or struggle and formulate an antidote.

Depression is worse in times of inactivity when we have time to overthink things.

Things in reality are not different at Christmas time than they are at any other time of the year. However attention is more drawn to our inability to get and to give everything that we would like to get and give.

True meaning of Christmas is not discovered intellectually. To tell a person what that is will not take away any negative emotions. The meaning is discovered experientially. Christmas is to be experienced.

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The gospel is still “good news”.

Recipe For Happy Holidays

Understanding what really is the most important and giving attention to those things. Not things that you can hold in your hand. Not things that money can buy. Often people who pursue happiness are the most miserable of all people because it is forever elusive.

What could we do for our community for Christmas?

What are the times

This is all about Jesus. Ever have kids who get upset when it’s someone else’s birthday and they don’t get the toys.

Pouters. Oh let the sun shine in face it with a grin.

Past the Past

Colored glasses. The way I see it. . . .

Often we tell God what we want. How often do we listen to what He wants. (Broken & contrite spirit. Find out what pleases the Lord – This is the will of God – even your sanctification.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH

Life brings opportunities, and from these opportunities comes growth. To some "opportunities" are seen as problems, and not as the building blocks for growth they can be, forming the foundations for positive change.

Change can either be embraced or rejected, the choice is ours. When life - the universe - brings us challenges and obstacles, we can choose to embrace each opportunity as spirit work and discover what riches it may contain.

Sometimes, we must pause in the dark corners of our soul in order to shed light on what is hidden behind the curtain of our fear.

However, we can also choose to turn a blind eye to what benefits may be offered, hide from potential pain, and become paralyzed by our own timidity.

If we choose to embrace that fear, and pass through it, while searching for the gifts - opportunities for growth - it contains, then we choose to accept life and all it offers, which in turn helps us to become the positive light-bearing individuals we are meant to be.

If, on the other hand, we choose to close our eyes to our pain, and throw away the box, shielding our inner vision from what it may contain, then we choose to live our life as half a person; eventually closing ourselves off to even positive emotions. By living as "half a person," we become people constantly seeking to fill our other halves with material comforts, which bring only temporary relief and fleeting satisfaction.

When we choose to embrace our personal pain and experience the grief and the joy that life offers; we choose to live our life to the fullest and accept all the universe has to offer. When we allow the universe to work with us, accepting everything it has to offer, choose to make things happen for us, instead of letting things happen to us. The universe is not your enemy, God does not choose to make us miserable; only to further our capacities for love by providing opportunities for enlightenment and growth.

We make ourselves miserable by remaining stuck in the problem, or lingering in those dark corners, and constantly complaining about our lives; rather than striving to overcome our difficulties, embracing our pain, and moving beyond it into the shining beacon of acceptance and personal growth.

Kristie Overstreet

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. Sometimes God’s ordained pathway for you is right through the middle of your trials.

I received a little printed form the other day with a rather intriguing title: How to Be Perfectly Miserable. And it goes on to list a few things you can do that will not only make you perfectly miserable but also keep you that way.

1. Think about yourself.

2. Talk about yourself.

3. Use the personal pronoun "I" as often as possible in your conversation.

4. Mirror yourself continually in the opinion of others.

5. Listen greedily to what people say about you.

6. Insist on consideration and respect.

7. Demand agreement with your own views on everything.

8. Sulk if people are not grateful to you for favors shown them.

9. Never forget a service you may have rendered.

10. Expect to be appreciated.

11. Be suspicious.

12. Be sensitive to slights.

13. Be jealous and envious.

14. Never forget a criticism.

15. Trust nobody but yourself.

See: Rom 12:3; 1 Cor 13:4-5

Sometimes the good we do others is merely an effort to place them in our debt. We do the good fully expecting to have them repay us. It’s kind of a strange pay on an OT principle – an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. You’d better repay the kindness that I give you. Like the parents line – “After all that I’ve done for you.” Yes our children should be grateful but it is a very poor way to solicit respect or gratitude or anything else. It takes the blessing out of both giving and receiving.

Jesus said that we should not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. An extremely unhealthy way of thinking is to allow ourselves to dwell on all the good that we have done. It will lead you to despair.

Little boy preparing valentines for his class.

The nature of secular Christmas is slightly bent. If the heart of God expressed by the Holy Spirit resident in you longs to give and we want to give in order to receive then we will be disappointed.