...The Thing I Cannot Change....

God,
Grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change....

Well, one thing's for sure: We can't change the weather! We canceled Sunday School and worship at Alpha Baptist, during which we were going to present our Christmas program, for Sunday morning, December 21. A couple of inches of snow fell, the winds kicked up, and the temps fell like a rock, so we decided it wouldn't be safe for anyone to be out. Actually, it wasn't really safe for me to drive home to Galesburg from Alpha tonight. There were parts of highway 150 in which I got scared because I couldn't see but 4-5 feet in front of me due to blowing snow. We can postpone the Christmas program until 12/28, no problem. I really didn't want to cancel morning worship, though, especially when we canceled the community Christmas service last Friday night (12/19). I feel bad about the community service, not only because I enjoy that service every year, and it's really well-attended, which presents a wonderful opportunity to share the Gospel with folks who might not have much church involvement; I also feel bad that we canceled because it turned out that the roads and streets weren't bad at all, since the temps warmed up more than expected, and the trucks did a great job. That's all great, but it felt a little silly canceling when I found out how good the roads ended up. Which brings us back to the "Serenity Prayer": "...to accept the things I cannot change...." We just didn't know that it would be as warm as it was through the day. And now, we have to cancel again. And snow is predicted for Tuesday, which means...Wednesday...Christmas Eve service.... We'll see.

"...Serenity to accept the things I cannot change...."

We can also take all this as a reminder that contrary to what we try to tell ourselves, we're not in charge--God is!!

I probably won't post again before Christmas, so Merry Christmas, everyone!!

The "War on Christmas"

Hey everyone!
Just a thought: I hear about how there is a "war on Christmas". Friends, there is no such thing, except what some folks might be trying to manufacture. Some folks even get worked up about how store clerks say "happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". If my enjoyment of Christmas and my celebration of my Savior's birth depends on some store clerk saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "happy holidays", then my faith isn't all that strong and I'm pretty insecure about how I'm celebrating Jesus' birthday. The biggest threat to Christmas isn't people who say "happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", it's people who trample people literally to death scrambling into a Walmart on Black Friday (to get at the sales which really aren't any better than the sales that are going a week or so before Christmas) and shoot each other at a Toys'R'Us and drink too much and go too deep into debt and forget to tell their children that Santa Claus and presents and candy canes, etc., are all to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.

On the other hand, I read about how there are some atheists who have put up their own anti-Christmas display in the vicinity of a nativity display on a courthouse lawn somewhere, going on and on about how the nativity scene is a message of hatred and fear, blah, blah blah. To those yutzes I say: GET OVER YOURSELVES!! For the rest of us who aren't so whiney and insecure, the best way to fight such goofy stuff is to ignore it!