The Monday after Christmas

Welcome, everyone! I trust you had a very wonderful Christmas, celebrating the fact that God became flesh and dwelt among us.

I had a very relaxing Christmas with my family. It was wonderful to just have all 8 of us together. December has been full of days on end when we never had all 8 of us sitting down together at the same time, so just eating breakfast together on Christmas morning was a gift.

One big reason that we haven't had as much family time this month is because my brother Curtis has gotten a job (praise the Lord!) and because of the shift he works, he's gone almost all the time everyone else is home, so it's been a bit sad, and I have thoroughly enjoyed his time off this week!!! Dad had several days off as well, which is always wonderful.

But, as wonderful as family time is, it isn't the reason for Christmas. Celebrating Christ coming to earth is the important thing, and I'm glad for the time set aside to do so.

Do you remember the Christmas story I posted on here? It was intended for the Christmas Carol service at our church, which was supposed to take place the Sunday before Christmas. Because of the 1.5-2' of snow we received that week, though, services were canceled.

That meant we celebrated our Christmas service last night at church! It was very nice - beautiful music, and a good message.

The King's Strings played one song for the service, and I think it went very well. It was fun to play. We did "Go tell it on the Mountain" mixed with another song.

I didn't get very nervous when we played. It's hard to get nervous with that many people up there with you. Besides, we were enjoying what we were doing.

Then it was time for the dramatic reading...which I had written.

That's when I got nervous.

The man chosen to read the piece did a wonderful, wonderful job. He made the words come to life, and I enjoyed listening to him. He made it sound like he was really Joseph. I liked it very much.

But I still was a little nervous. I had written the story to bring God glory and to make people think of Him, yet a small part of me still had some pride, and still cared about what people would think of my writing, so I got nervous.

It's rough, being human. (It's even rougher admitting it.)

But I didn't need to be worried. After the service many people came up to me and told me they had been blessed by the reading. That, of course, blessed me! I was so happy they had been touched.

Just about everyone who talked with me about the story told me that I ought to publish it. Pastor even said that from the pulpit.

It sounded familiar....almost like what my blog readers had said. :) (Doesn't it make you happy to know I was thinking of you at church last night? :)

I keep wondering if God is hinting to me. In fact, I'm seriously considering writing and publishing a collection of these kinds of stories. Will y'all help me pray about that? I think it would make a good project for the New Year.

I have all sorts of project ideas for the New Year. I hope the next few posts I do will be more structured, and focused on some of these ideas. I have several post ideas running through my mind, on topics like:

~ Time Management; multi-tasking in order to redeem our time

~ Clothes; does the way we dress affect the way we act?

~ The role stress plays in our lives

....and etc. I won't tell you everything I'm thinking of. :)

I must run for now. It's a busy Monday here!