It’s Friday, so please remember to pray for Mumsee, Mike, and the Nestlings.
Anyone else?
Luke 1:39-56
Mary Visits Elizabeth
39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
Mary’s Song
46 And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
Wandering Views 
Praise: my niece made it home last night – one of the few who did! We are very thankful (especially my sister)
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Praising!
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So happy to hear and give praise for that, Kare.
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https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christmas-under-sun/
~ Despite the Paul McCartney jingle echoing through our department stores this season, many of us will not be “simply having a wonderful Christmastime.” Much of our Christmas joy will be met, and made to sing, shoulder to shoulder with dissonant sorrows.
I’ve had cancer since 2018. I received my Stage 4 diagnosis in December 2020—just in time for Christmas to be included in all the crookedness of that year. This blow came just a month before our third child, Jane Ridley Wright, was born. We soon learned our “baby Jane” had been born with a regressive and rare gene mutation.
I bear witness that the hope and joy of Christmas are not easily held in hand with the harshness of life under the sun. It’s a weary task trying to unify it all: birth and disability, sacred and profane, transfiguration and tragedy, cancer and Christmas. But, as Leo Tolstoy observes, “All the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” Samwise Gamgee agrees: “It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were.”
Maybe you’re not grappling with a cancer diagnosis or a suffering child; maybe you are. But all of us will one day meet something so off in our world that we ask, Does any of it matter? We’ll be tempted by nihilism because sometimes constructing a beautiful narrative to straighten what’s crooked is harder than just letting it all burn.
How might we better hold in tension light and darkness in this “wonderful” season? What hath Christmas to do with crookedness? … ~
(The rest at the link)
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“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5)
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Nightingale only got three hours of sleep last night, and is busy with cooking for Christmas, so she passed on coming to the service tonight. Please pray that the Holy Spirit will move in her heart anyway. (He doesn’t need a church service to do so. 🙂 ) And in Chickadee and in Boy, too. Thank you.
Also please pray that these awful winds, which are expected to continue on and off throughout most of the evening, will not cause us to lose power, as so many others in town already have. As some have already experienced, our temps are going to drop drastically to the single digits over night.
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One of our trees, which wasn’t in good shape anyway, broke off several yards up the trunk. Fortunately, it is not too close to the house, and landed in our yard without damaging anything.
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Well, I didn’t go to the service, either. My friend Cindy was going to pick me up. As the afternoon went on, with the temps dropping, the rain turning to a little snow, and hard surfaces turning to slippery ice, I started feeling like not only did I not want to go out there, but also started to doubt that Cindy would want to drive in it.
Then Cindy called me to say that she in fact did not want to drive in this slippery mess. So I decided to stay home, too, rather than risk a slip and a fall on the ice.
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So sorry that you are having to stay home, Kizzie, because of this spectacular display of “weather.” So many plans are being revised. There have been many cancellations at the Atlanta airport so people are stuck in places they did not intend to be.😒 It’d be nice if everyone decided to have a do-over for this Christmas. I think that would make for a nice movie.😃
I pray you don’t lose power and that God will find a way soon to bring conversions to your girls and grandson. Is conversion the right term? Or should be salvation? God knows.
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Janice – I think either word works. 🙂
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