Our Last

As we have been marching toward the Military Chaplaincy, we have been marking our journey with our last (everything) here. It is such a bitter sweet journey. We are so excited about the certainty of God's call into the Military Chaplaincy, but we understand that we have to leave this place, a place we love, to answer that call.

Sunday morning we had a church wide breakfast and a visit from "Santa!" (Thanks Ralph) Santa hands our gifts to all the little children and the church gives us a gift as well. This year we received a beautiful pewter server and a monetary gift also. All the gifts they have given us in our almost six years here have been wonderful. We use these gifts regularly and will use them for many more years to come. Following our time of food, fellowship and gift giving we had a short Sunday School lesson and were off to get a good seat for worship.

For worship, the children of the church presented their Christmas presentation. They did a FANTASTIC job!!! Just as FANTASTIC was the choir cantata that was the second part of our worship. What a great day of worship, fellowship and food!

Monday we had our last Christmas Eve Service here. Laura sang Breath of Heaven by Amy Grant and I spoke from Isaiah 52:7. I will remember this service for a very long time.

Laura and I thank God for allowing us to be here. We have had many great experiences here and that is why we are marking our journey and enjoying every "last." We realize that our journey leads us away from the warm embrace of those who love us here. This personal journey has made me ponder the reality for Jesus. He left the warm embrace of his Father and all the Heavenly beings to live among people, to love all people and to give himself fully to the call of God.

I am so glad that Jesus was willing to journey from the warm embrace of the Father to the warm embrace of Mary, Joseph, Simeon and all the others who have loved and accepted him.

I pray that God has experienced the warm embrace of your heart. May God bless your journey of faith as you seek to follow God's plan for your life.

I know that wherever we go we will find the warm embrace of others, but we are enjoying a little more time with some good friends. So I leave you with a picture of Victoria, Laura and Me as we were celebrating our last Christmas here.