Christ Was NOT Born On December 25th

I have heard every reason not to celebrate on December 25th. They range from the basic ("would you want someone to celebrate your birthday on the wrong day, how would that make you feel" - first heard this one on a support board about 4 years ago) to the religious ("God never tells us to celebrate anyone's birth. He tells us other things to celebrate, but not births" - heard this one, for the first time, in 2000 from a coworker), and every reason in between.

Here's the thing. No, Christ was most likely not born on December 25th (or whatever they called the specific day back then). BUT, who cares. If you desire to set aside a day and time to specifically celebrate the birth of our Savior, it's a fine date. If you want to choose another date, choose another date. If you don't want to pick one single time to really make it the center of your attention, fine. We aren't sinning by celebrating. We aren't sinning by not celebrating. That's the thing, this is one of those "doesn't matter in the grand scheme of life" situations. God does not forbid celebrating the birth of His Son. Actually, He created the first birthday party if you want to be honest. Angels singing of His birth, requesting the presence of shephards after He was born. Leading the Magi to the Christ child to celebrate His birth (by the way, the Magi did not get there on the day He was born. So there's the first delayed celebration of His birth, created by God).

We need to let go of our own ideas as being scripture, and realize that most of those that celebrate Christ's birth (not speaking of those that view Christmas as a time to only give gifts and possibly be a little nicer to others), are doing nothing wrong Biblically and are, after all, following the traditions of the first people to celebrate His life, even doing it on a different day like they did oh so long ago.

Let's just remember the reason for the season, the reason for ALL seasons, Christ the child that came to us on that day so long ago to give us eternal life.

Blessings To Bless Others With

We are so blessed to have many, many toys for our sons. They have been collected, over the years, from our own purchases, gifts from family and friends, friends handing things down that their older children are no longer playing with, and so on. Christmas is coming and both sides of the family enjoy buying things for the kids. This can mean room overload. So, I am going through the boys rooms with a fine toothed comb.

I have a few categories:

1. Trash - some toys are just pieces or too used to be good for anyone else to play with, ever.
2. Donate - we donate these to a charity for another child to be blessed with.
3. Give away - we have one new little young one in our group of friends and she will be getting a few "new" toys handed her way. And a train table is heading to a little buddy that will play with it.
4. Keep - this pile is very small. We are paring down our lives, and this includes plastic, brightly colored, often tossed aside, toys. We are making way for new ones but we are also deciding not to let the number of toys get out of hand again.

The boys are great about it. Baby Boy has no clue what's happening. But he's helping me sort and put things in bags. Big Boy is helping, and he gets what we are doing. He's fine with it. I love the feeling of getting our lives simplified on every level, including toy supply.

Attack Of The Rash

We have rash, wild red rash. (sounds like some Country and Western bar) Baby Boy has a red rash all over his torso. He's cranky, and crying a lot. I am praying it's just an allergic reaction to something. He is, afterall, the king of rashes. For the last two weeks he's had a purpura rash everyday. I think, after watching it, that it's due to his gluten intake. Since we have stopped his gluten, his purpura rash has subsided.

But I am just trying to figure out what's happening in his little system this time. We had allergy poops over the weekend, creating a yeast infection on his bum. This is nothing unusual for him, but I am not sure what it's tied to. It's possibly bananas and the fiber content in them. Fiber, we discovered, can be a bad thing for people with celiac. Since we think there are some celiac things going on, we could be looking at this as a possible suspect.

Basically, life as usual around here.

What's For Supper - The Night BEFORE Thanksgiving

Everyone always wants to know what's for the big turkey day meal. But, what are we having for supper TONIGHT?

We are having:

• GF/CF/OF/SF homemade organic chicken nuggets
• GF/CF/OF/SF homemade mashed sweet potatoes
• Fruit for the kids
• Homemade, from scratch, fruit gelatin (mixed berry flavor). I wish someone had told me how easy this was to make a long time ago. I never would have bought Jello.

The Sacred Meal By Nora Gallagher

The Sacred Meal, Communion, the meal that binds all Christian denominations together. No matter what you call it, it's the celebration, the remembrance of that last supper long ago. Nora Gallagher presents her ideas on this special remebrance in "The Sacred Meal".

I first thought this book would be about the history, the beauty, the meaning, and Biblical backing for our faith's belief and celebration of communion. Maybe Ms. Gallagher felt that's what she was doing when she wrote it, maybe not. What I left with was confusion at the more liberal notations in the book, the overwhelming confusion she seemed to have with Christianity and how different it is from other religions such as Islam, faiths from India, and so forth. To compare communion to the transcendence you find of an almost out of body experience when partaking in meditation in India's religions makes one wonder if she understands the truth behind the Christian faith. Then, comparing Rosa Parks and MartinLuther King, Jr. to a man who doesn't use his car one day a week and replaces traditional light bulbs with green light bulbs, you have to wonder if she worked hard to get an eco-friendly message into a book about the sacrament of Communion. She also explains that it's FACT that man-made global warming exists, though she is very wrong on the factual basis of this claim. I closed the book wondering what those subjects had to do with communion on any level.

She then compares communion not to the "last supper" that Christ had with His followers, but instead to the feeding of 5,000 (though it's accepted in all Christian denominations that this is a remembrance of that last supper meal). She seems to lose some of the passion, understanding, and actual spiritual message of communion, and sadly, of Christ Himself.

I was sorely disappointed in "The Sacred Meal" by Nora Gallagher. I had high hopes of walking away with either a deeper understanding, or a deeper appreciation for this celebration of Christ. Instead, I had to force myself through this book and had to stop the audibly sigh of disappointment in the places where she got it so very wrong.

I was also disappointed that this was not strictly a Christian perspective on communion, but pretty much an Episcopalian one. I was saddened to hear of how Catholic communion scared her so badly and how absolutely bored she was in protestant church growing up, but the Episcopal church opened her up in wonderful ways. That's great, for her journey in Christ. But it seemed out of place in a book of this nature.

In general, this book was very much personal feeling, personal thought, not much Biblical backing at all, not much concern for Biblical truth, and very little Christianity involved (anyone should partake of the communion supper, doesn't matter who you are, if you even believe in Christ, or if you have even come to a saving knowledge of Him.

New Film By The Makers Of Fireproof

Being the wife of a cop, I am excited about this film. The topic: fatherhood. The characters: cops.

This is such a timely film. When Dads are portrayed as idiots, bumbleheads, and like they can't do anything right or contribute anything worthwhile to a family in most media sources, this seems to be one that will edify fathers and fatherhood, Biblical fatherhood.

On top of that, it deals with family life with a cop. This is huge. Many, many cops have a hard time turning off the job when they come home. So they either check out totally due to what they saw or dealt with that day, or become mean, angry, and sometimes abusive because of the control issues that go undealt with.

My own husband had an issue with checking out. Most men don't see the types of things cops see on a weekly basis, so they have an easier time. But even men that sit behind a desk often come home and veg in front of TV (are you ready for some football?????) or the computer all evening long. So it's not hard to imagine a cop might do that a lot with what they have to deal with. This was, praise God, something my husband realized was a problem and quickly dealt with it. But many men don't. I hope this movie will address this very real issue in fatherhood.

New Sherwood Film

Walk For Autism

Today is a busy day. In a few hours the boys and I are heading to the baseball stadium to participate in a walk for Autism. We have our camera, our stroller, our t-shirts (will post pictures of them later), our water bottles, and our motivation. I checked the numbers last night and just our local walk has raised $280,000 so far. Wow, that's $280,000 more than we had a month ago towards the cure for Autism.

If you read this early enough, please pray for our walk, that we have a great day, and that in all things God will be glorified through us.