Family

A Little Family Time Before Christmas

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Matthew 1:18 KJV

The story of Christmas began with one family: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Those three are not featured much in the store-displays anymore, they are featured in the Biblical account. God chose to begin His mission on earth by including a young, engaged couple, in an obscure village in Galilee. I haven’t written much in the last couple of weeks because we have been having some much-needed time away with our family. Though we didn’t have to ride a donkey to get here, we treasure our time together because when hugging our grandkids takes a twelve-hundred-mile trip, we don’t want to miss a minute of it! Though we won’t head home till tomorrow, I will do my best to share some stories of Christmas with you as I find some moments early in the morning while everyone else is still sleeping. May God bless each of you on this year’s Advent journey as we touch base again, not only with our families, but with the family that God created when He sent Jesus to Mary and Joseph after that ninety-mile trip on a donkey, two-thousand years ago!

Sweet Simple Blessings

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

While working with one of our in-laws to revise the home school composition and poetry book which we released last year, I stumbled across this poem from a few years ago. With all of the craziness in the news and modern life in general, it helps to take a step back, just breathe and remember that God is in control. He knows and has designed our every moment and I love how Jesus reminds us of this by asking the simple question:

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  Matthew 6:27 NIV
Hearing the song
That the Mockingbird sings
And seeing the colors
As the Bluebird takes wing

And catching the fragrance
That the Hummingbirds seek
In the flowers that grow
By the side of the creek

And all of those moments
That are finest of fine
Are the sweet simple blessings
That Our Father designed

Sweet Simple Blessings
By Peter Caligiuri
Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved

I paired today's poem with a lullaby I wrote many years ago when our children were small. The first verse comes from an older children's poem by Rose Fyleman, to which I added to more verses and a chorus. I do hope that it's gentle melody will be a blessing for you. Though I have this under copyright, please feel free to use it with your own friends and family, if you like it.


The Snickel’s Family Friend

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment 
 A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for a time of adversity
Proverb 17:17 NIV  
In the Spring of ’86 just as the days were turning warm
With the money they had saved they bought the field above the farm
And as their boys ran through the hayfield, they watched the cows below
Then imagined how their house would look and where the garden ought to go

The Snickels watched their home being built as it took about a year
Then they sorted, prayed and planned when they saw the time growing near
For the move out to the country and to leave their friends behind
Oh, what a great adventure, that they pictured in their mind 

But as the seasons came and went, very soon their two boys grew tall
While the garden that they planted filled up the canning jars each Fall
And their work seemed almost endless, so they hardly noticed how things changed
To wake up one day and find their boys lives were being rearranged

The boys left behind their household chores for college and a job
And as the little home grew still, the quiet days just seemed so odd 
It seemed like only yesterday when Snickels pancakes filled each plate
Now looking out they watched as now the empty field fill up with flakes 

But in their sudden loneliness God spoke His promise true
That through the night however long He'd make each sunrise new
And on the pathway that we walk He keeps close onto the end
And through every year that passes He will be our faithful friend

The Snickel's Family Friend 
By Peter Caligiuri 
Copyright © 2023 
All rights reserved