grandchildren

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!

Praying for Our Children

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments 
Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. 
Psalm 90:16 ESV

When our children were young, we had big plans for their lives. We sacrificed, saved, and struggled so that they would have better opportunities than we had. But the day came with each of them, when they moved out on their own and began doing things on their own, sometimes in directions we had never thought of. Though it wasn’t easy, the reality was that we had to learn to let go of our control. We needed to trust that just as God had lovingly directed and corrected us over the years, that they would also have to fall down here and there in order to experience God’s power in helping them back up again. That is something of the situation in which Moses writes Psalm 90. The children of Israel were somewhere in the desert on their forty-year journey. They definitely had some huge missteps along the way. They grumbled, tried to elect a new leader to take them back to Egypt and even built a golden calf. Yet, after some grave consequences, along with Moses pleading for God’s mercy, they eventually made it. It amazes me that Moses didn’t plead for himself to be allowed to go into the promised land, instead, he prayed that God would show His power to the next generation. With all the focus that is put on discovering our gifts and fulfilling our purpose, sometimes we forget that God also has a purpose for the next generation. Sometimes the most important job we have is to pray for God to help our children experience His power for themselves. We may not have the opportunity to cross every river ourselves, but we can ask for God’s grace and power for those who will. God gives each of us a small but special part in His enormous plan. First we need to be faithful to do all the work that God has given us, and then we need to pray for the ones coming after us to discover His will for themselves. Our job is to pass along our faith, not our plans. In our case, though our kids haven’t done a lot of things we planned on, what God has given them to do is better than anything we ever imagined. If we will be willing to pray, for them to see God’s power for themselves, then one day, we will meet on the other side of the river and rejoice together because of both God’s amazing plan and HIs amazing grace

Waking Early With Christian

/ pastorpete51 / 12 Comments 
You will go out in joy
 and be led forth in peace;
 the mountains and hills
 will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
 will clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12 NIV

Back in 1975 when our first child was just 14 months old, we used to read to him from a book titled, "Poems and Prayers for the Very Young". In that precious little volume, one of our favorites was Singing Time by Rose Fyleman. I read it so often that I eventually added a melody and wrote some verses to make it into a lullaby somewhat based on Isaiah 55:12.. Now in spite of the fact that I loved the tune, neither of our boys say they have any memories of it. But when I played it for our grandson Christian, he fell in love with the song and insisted that we record it together. This video has knocked around in my files ever since and each time I see I say, "I need to do something with that someday." Today someday arrived, and I hope that this simple recording will be fun to watch and maybe even a melody you could share with your own children or grandchildren. I did finally get the song copyrighted in 2015, but please feel free to use it with your own families as you wish. I'll send the chords and lyrics on request. Have a blessed day all!