Sydney New Years Eve Fire Works

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

"This is one of the great challenges of this life on earth: To live and love in each moment since we never know how long we have to be with those we treasure most deeply."

Thankyou Alexsandra

Treasure life, even the painful parts...What would joy be if there wasnt a trace of sorrow..What would sorrow be if we couldnt laugh through our tears.

Life is LIFE. LIVE It. Embrace it. Enhance it. LOVE it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

PRAYER FOR ALL MOTHERS

Tomorrow is the anniversary of my mothers death. My mother died at 3PM exactly on New Years Eve 1994, she was only 56 years old, her birthday was on January 10th. I cannot convey in words the great loss we suffered except to say, Joy she IS, Joy she gave, a Joy to us always.

Please say a prayer for her. Thankyou.

O almighty and eternal God,

Lord of both the living and the dead,

Your tender mercy embraces all men

foreknown to be Yours by faith and a good life.

Through the intercession

of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary our Mother,

and of all the saints,

grant Your merciful pardon to all mothers for whom we pray,

whether they still are living in this world

or have departed from this flesh into the world to come.

Especially, dear Lord,

grant the requests I now make of You

or my own beloved mother.

Amen.

Merry Christmas With Love

I know it´s late but better late than never.

May your home be filled with the love,
And wonderful peace of Jesus,
Our Lord and Savior, King of Kings,
Lord of Lords Who's with us.

Yes He is the Miracle Babe,
Born in a manger that one night,
While the love of God shone Above,
And the angels sang to invite.

May your heart be filled with a love,
And great longing to see Jesus,
For He came for us, you and me,
And always we'll be His to bless.

Oh love Him and revere His Birth,
He's your Love and your Life all 'round,
And He'll hold you like no other,
His wonderful peace keeps you sound.

May your spirit be filled with love,
Worship Jesus on each day now,
Let the joy of His love be full,
As in His Presence you will bow.

Merry Christmas with love in Him,
His wonderful peace will alight,
When your home is filled with Jesus,
Just as His love that star filled night.

I wish you all a Season filled with joy and happiness..
May those you love be filled with the joy of this special day.
May Jesus and His Mother Mary glow within your hearts.
May we never feel compromised about what this season truly
means to us all who celebrate the Birth of Our Savior
and may we never forget the "reason for the season."
How sad that so many people have to hesitate to say
"Merry Christmas" without offending any who have this
insane power to change the meaning of the very word
"Christmas" ~ A time of special meaning for millions of
people around the world. So many things have changed
through the years and now such a rampant display of
words are offered so not to offend the "mighty few" who
have the power to change the very heart of what Christmas is.
It is the birth of a Child who brought Light to our world.
Be joyful in your expressions of what you have been taught to
share. May your Holidays throughout the year be filled with
the same love and kindness that you should experience on your
very special Holidays. Be joyful in your ability to be able to
express words that you wish to express and do not allow anyone
(however small minded) to change the joy that you feel.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my friends. I thank you for the support you have given me through the year and wish you a day of happiness... each and every day of the year.

God Bless Us Everyone!

Love Always,
Ginny

The Truth About Shepherds

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night" Luke 2:8

What do you picture when you read this familiar verse? The squeaky-clean children of a hundred Sunday school Christmas pageants, self-conscious in bath-robes with towels draped around their heads. Cute, perhaps, but not accurate. Let's try another version.

"And there were in the same country street people, huddled over a heating grate by night, passing around cheap wine in a paper sack"...

Closer to it! The shepherds belonged to one of the "despised trades" of Jesus' day - folks that proper people scorned and avoided. Why? Well, dirt, for one thing. I remember the time I helped sheep-ranching friends pack fleeces after shearing. A fleece is the sheep's wooly coat freshly clipped off his body - sticky with lanolin, smelly, loaded with dirt. To pack it for shipping, you gather it in your arms and throw it into a tall burlap wool bag supported on a stanchion.

Because of their size, my youngest son and our friend's daughter had the dubious honor of standing in the bottom of the bags and stomping the fleeces down tight, one by one - the dirtiest job of all.

By the end of that hot afternoon, we all wanted nothing so much as a bath. Packing fleeces is such a messy job that most ranchers have machines do it.

The shepherds outside Bethlehem worked with sheep up close and personal, all day, everyday. In dusty desert country, water was scarce and precious. They had little opportunity to bathe. Moreover, as they followed the animals from place to place, I'd guess they rarely even changed clothes. Keeping the Kosher laws - much less the elaborate cleanliness rituals of the faithful Jew - was out of the question. Add to that the shepherd's less than kosher scruples.

Because they moved their flocks from place to place, they often used other people's land without permission. And most certainly they were not above appropriating sheep from other flocks if they thought they could get away with it.

Yet God passed by all the upright, faithful Temple-goers who had arrived in Bethlehem to announce his Good News first to these smelly, scruffy outcasts. God surprises us with His grace. He delights in showing us He is bound by no human expectation or convention. He will always do things His way. Beyond that, however, His action shows us very clearly that we don't earn the Good News. The shepherds were not "good people." If we had been charge, there is no way we would have rewarded those shepherds with the honor of being the first to hear about the Messiah's birth... which is precisely why God did so. His love is a free, glorious gift, not a prize to be won.

By choosing the outcasts of society, God declared there is no one beyond the bounds of His love. No one is too dirty, too sinful, too despised. There is no place too ugly for His presence, whether a sheep pasture or a cross.

Jesus' Mother

Would you want to have been Jesus’ mother…
Knowing that your child was to die for the sins of others?

Watching Him as He lay in that manger so warm and still…
That from the beginning this whole plan was God’s will.

You watch Him play on that earthen floor…
Realizing that one day He would walk out your door.

Even as He grew and learned Joseph’s business so well…
You knew that to a piece of wood he would some day be nailed.

Now you hear Him say that His Father’s business must begin…
Your heart breaks in two because this signals the end.

Thirty plus years have come and gone…
What a terrible burden a mother carries alone.

There hangs your Son on a rugged old cross…
Giving His life to save all who are lost.

You remember that old inn, where they said there was no room…
Now your son lies in a cold damp tomb.

A truer love you will not find in any other…
Than the love that Jesus knew from His precious mother.

Christmas Reflection

“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there as no place for them in the inn.” Luke 2: 7

There was no room for Him, the Inn was crowded and he had to be placed in a manger. Are we still shouting “No Room!” today? SELF is the Crowded Inn today and the manger is where SELF has been DISPLACED.

We have become so self absorbed that we lose all focus on the real reason for the season. Thoughts of what do I get my loved ones flood our minds. The Christmas parties, shopping for new clothing, the decorations, and our minds are racing a mile a minute. We clean our homes and make all these preparations but do we do the same with our hearts to prepare for this Blessed Season? Do we dust our hearts and remove the cobweb from our souls? Do we polish our spirits?

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of our Savior. His birth changed the world, the angel proclaimed to the shepherds “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

When Jesus was born, there were mixed reactions. Some welcomed Him, some ignored Him, some rejected Him. There was no room for Him at the inn so the Son of God was laid in a manger where the animals were kept. Today we see the same reaction to Christ. Some welcome Him, some reject Him and some ignore Him.

What do we do to prepare for the King of Kings today? What will we get Jesus this year? The shepherds came from their fields leaving their flock to see Him. The Wise Men left their homes and security and made a very long journey to find Him. They brought Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. What will our gifts be?

Yes there is room for the tree and the goodies that we associate with this season but we must focus on the true meaning of the season. The birth of the Christ Child should be the focus of our celebrations so that out hearts may be turned to Christ now and always. The light of Christ is meant to put us in touch with a great virtues and move us to become more grateful and generous. Christmas is meant for us to focus on God’s purpose for us even as it unfolds before us.

The Christmas Story is about real life then and now. The real people courageously struggled to survive in the ‘rat race’ of their time as we do now. It is about how much each one was willing to give of themselves, no matter the stakes.

Our homes are the connection to the Christmas story. Home is where the heart is. Christmas is not the same if we are not home. Christmas is God in flesh, warmly moving into our homes, moving into our hearts. Do we have room in our “Inn”, is it crowded or is there room, a manger heart? How do we move from the crowded inn syndrome to the manger heart? Grace. Self is displaced and God’s love fills every room. We are humbled knowing that He who we have been searching for has been walking beside us and became God in skin so that He may give his life so we may gain ours. Such joy and gratitude erupts within us that our response is awe and wonder, we fall to our knees in humble worship. This is Christmas.

“Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him"-- and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds."

“Were it not for the shepherds, there would have been no reception. And were it not for a group of stargazers, there would have been no gifts."-- Max Lucado

So what will our hearts be like this year, the Crowded Inn, “No Room No Room!!” or will we have manger hearts “Come Lord Jesus Come, there is ROOM!”

I wish you all a Season filled with joy and happiness..
May those you love be filled with the joy of this special day.
May Jesus and His Mother Mary glow within your hearts.
May we never feel compromised about what this season truly
means to us all who celebrate the Birth of Our Savior
and may we never forget the "reason for the season."

To those who do not celebrate Christmas, I wish you
the same love and joy for all who celebrate in other
ways, for other reasons ~ all with the same simple message.
Be joyful in your expressions of what you have been taught to
share. May your Holidays throughout the year be filled with
the same love and kindness that you should experience on your
very special Holidays. Be joyful in your ability to be able to
express words that you wish to express and do not allow anyone(however small minded) to change the joy that you feel.

And may the spirit of that wonderful birth that brought our Savior to us
be in your hearts all during this season and the rest of the days to come
as we wait faithfully and stand together in love until His return,

forgetting all pettiness, unforgiveness, ill will, envy, strife, malice,or anything that would hinder us from working side by side as we laborin the Kingdom! Let us remember that we are fellow laborers in Christ! And there is no room for competition ...
We are a Team, and a Family!

Let us judge each other with the standard of God's love!
We may not always agree or even be pleased with each other in every
instance, but we can walk together in the oneness of our faith in
Jesus Christ, our Messiah, and Lord!

Merry Christmas!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ESTHER!!

Yes! It is Esthers Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ESTHER & GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS!

With love & friendship

Marie xoxoxoxo

I Love The Word Impossible

I Love The Word Impossible

It's like joy after sorrow.

People being friends after being enemies

Rainbows after drenching rain.

A wound healed

Sunsets on quiet evenings after

Hot noisy days.

Paralyzed, injured limbs learning to grow

Strong and useful again.

Forgiveness after wrong

Truth after fog.

New love-made babies.

Birds learning to fly and own the sky

Bitterness turned to mellowness

Fresh, genuine hope .. once abandoned

People finding each other at right moments

In unexpected, obscure places ..

For God-ordained reasons.

I love the word impossible because my God believes

In adventure

And extraordinary mountains

And he dares to be alive in a world

Crawling with terrible situations

He promises to be bigger than any impossibility

Because He is love ..

And love always finds a way through, in time.

It's Not about the Manger

What image does the mention of Christmas typically conjure up? For most of us, it is a babe lying in a manger while Mary and Joseph, angels, and assorted animals look on.

Heartwarming picture, but Christmas is about far more than a Child's birth—even the Savior's birth. It is about the Incarnation: God Himself, Creator of heaven and earth, invading planet earth, becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

It is a staggering thought. Think of it: The Word—that is, Logos in the Greek, which meant all the knowledge that could be known—the plan of creation—that is, ultimate reality—becomes mere man? And that He was not born of an earthly king and queen, but of a virgin of a backwater village named Nazareth? Certainly God delights in confounding worldly wisdom—and human expectations.

Thirty years after His humble birth, Jesus increased the Jews' befuddlement when He read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor . . . to proclaim release to the captives . . . to set free those who are downtrodden . . . " Jesus then turned the scroll back and announced: "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

In effect, the carpenter's Son had just announced that He was the King.

So, yes, the birth of Jesus is a glorious moment, and the manger scene brings comfort and joy and Christmas cheer. But it should also inspire a holy terror in us: that this baby is God incarnate, the King who came to set the captives free—through His violent, bloody death on the cross as atonement for us, His unworthy subjects.

It is through the Incarnation God sets His grand plan in motion. He invades planet earth, establishing His reign through Christ's earthly ministry. And then Christ leaves behind an occupying force, His Church, which is to carry on the work of redemption until His return and the kingdom's final triumph.

Do we get this? I am afraid most of us are so preoccupied, distracted by last-minute Christmas shopping and consumerism, that we fail to see God's cosmic plan of redemption in which we, as fallen creatures, are directly involved.

The average Christian may not "get" this announcement, people in the developing world get it. Whenever I have shared this message with the poor and oppressed people overseas, I see eyes brightening. Stripped of all material blessings, exploited by earthly powers, they long for the bold new kingdom of Christ.

Today is Christmas: Go ahead and enjoy singing about, and celebrating, the birth of the Savior. Set up a manger scene in your home. But do not forget this earth-shaking truth: The birth of the Baby in the manger was the thrilling signal that God had invaded the planet. And that gives us the real reason to celebrate Christmas.

Charles Colson