Heart Choices: 2009-11-29 -->

Theme Layout

Boxed or Wide or Framed

Theme Translation

Display Featured Slider

Featured Slider Styles

Display Grid Slider

Grid Slider Styles

Display Trending Posts

Display Author Bio

Display Instagram Footer

Dark or Light Style

Bringing Holy Back Movement


Extravagant Grace

Bringing holy back to the holiday. What a concept!

Christmas is after all a celebration of the birth of Jesus; when God showed such amazing love to us. We don't deserve His love but He loves us despite ourselves and provided a way for us to be in relationship with Him ...through Jesus.

I don't know about you but when I really think of a perfect and holy God loving me that much ...it overwhelms me.

eLisa of Extravagant Grace began a movement called Bringing Holy Back to the Holiday. And it's not too late to join in. There's a place to link up or you can just follow along and add comments.

What does bringing back holy to the holiday mean? Well, eLisa describes it as "sharing His hope, joy, peace, love with others, instead of catering to the chaos we all know as Christmas."Now, that's a movement I want to be a part of. I don't know about you but I find so often the pressure of keeping up tiring. There's so much to do:

  • shopping
  • baking
  • card writing
  • parties
  • decorating

Don't get me wrong. I love to give gifts. I love to stay in touch with friends and family but the "doing" can take over the "being".

And with all of the uncertainty in my life right now, I need to focus on the true meaning of this special time of year.

I was reading this morning from Isaiah. BTW, did you know that Isaiah will be the new study next year at Bible Study Fellowship?

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory."
Isaiah 6:3

Holy is repeated three times. When a word is repeated like this in the Bible, it really means God is infinitely holy.

I think of: perfect, flawless, pure, white as snow.

We tend to think we are doing OK when we judge ourselves by others. Well, at least I don't do that ...

Or I've not committed the worst sins. After all, I don't cheat, steal, murder. You get the idea.

But consider this. When a person smokes cigarettes, they become so immune to the smell of the smoke. But if a nonsmoker walks into the room of a smoker, you can immediately smell that odor.

We can get so immune to the sin in our world unless it is so blatant.

But God cannot be in the presence of any sin. He is holy.

All I can say is thank you God for giving us Jesus. He paid the price for my sin. When I receive His free gift of salvation I can come into your presence. And that's worth celebrating.

I'm set free from sin and the power of sin. What a gift of love!

Will you consider joining the Bringing Holy back to the Holiday this year?

QuickEdit

Remembering at Christmas


I am participating in a special time of remembering at Christmas. Kelly of The Beauty of Sufficient Grace is hosting and I am so glad I "stumbled" (yeah, right) upon her beautiful blog.

The purpose of a time of remembering at Christmas is for those who have lost loved ones. Christmas should be a time of joy and thanksgiving for the birth of our Savior; Jesus. But for many it can also be a time of sadness as they miss loved ones who have died. Many of the women who participated have lost children and babies.

I'm thinking of my mom who died almost five years ago. She was a beautiful woman both inside and out. She had a wonderful sense of humor and always had a joke to share. She loved life and people.

My mom had lots of friends because ...she was a good friend.

She kept copious notes on her calendar including dates of other's loved ones who had died. She would often send a note to a friend who had lost someone special to let them know she remembered and wanted them to know she was thinking of them. My mom loved Christmas! We always celebrated on Christmas Eve in the traditional Norwegian way. And everyone got dressed up for the event.

The Christmas tree was always decorated with little Norwegian flags to remember my family's home land. And my mom always had my dad read from the Bible before we ate our special Christmas dinner. He read of the Savior's birth, just like my Grandpa used to do each year.

This photo is one I posted last year but it's such a wonderful Christmas memory. I think it was 1969. Don't laugh at my short dress and ribbon choker. Does anyone remember them?

Check out my mom's hairstyle. Years ago, she used to get her hair done every week where they would wash and set and then use lots of hair spray. When she and my dad left New York and moved to Florida, she gave up on that habit. LOL.

I'm just so thankful that my mom loved Jesus. I know that she's in heaven and out of the physical pain she suffered in her last years on this earth. It's such a comfort to think of her dancing and laughing with Jesus. And she's probably catching up with loved ones who've gone on before her.

Thank you Kelly for providing this opportunity to remember my mom at Christmas. If you would like to participate, it's not too late to link up at The Beauty of Sufficient Grace.


QuickEdit

Then Sings My Soul Saturday ~ Holy is the Lord



It's Then Sings My Soul Saturday and I'm back blogging again.

I praise God for the strength He has given me over the past few months. He continues to supply my needs and I'm so thankful for His presence in my life. How do people get through this life without Him?

But right now, I'm ready to praise Him and link up with Amy of Signs, Miracles and Wonders.

I chose Chris Tomlin's song Holy is the Lord for today. Christmas is the season when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. And He is indeed holy!


Speaking of holy, I wanted to mention that I am joining with eLisa of Extravagant Grace. She is on a mission to bring holy back to the holiday and I want to be a part of this. You can find out more about this movement here.



Extravagant Grace


Have a wonderful Saturday and don't forget to do some blog hopping with us today.



QuickEdit

Thankful Thursday on Friday


Thanksgiving has come and gone and so has Thankful Thursday. However, I really wanted to write about thankfulness today. So, sorry to my Fitness Friday gals but I'll participate next week.

I've not written a blog post since Tuesday which is unusual for me. Life has become very challenging for me lately. There's much uncertainty. It's easy for me to fall back into my old ways of worry and fear.

But God is teaching me to take one moment at a time and to ...trust Him in all things.

Yesterday I received the most precious email from my friend Jennifer of Smelling Coffee. If you've not had the pleasure of meeting her in our bloggy world, I encourage you to visit her. She shared a Scripture that is one I've memorized in the past but needed to be reminded of now.

"You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind (both its inclination and its character) is stayed on You, because he commits himself toYou, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You." Isaiah 26: 3

I'm so thankful that the Lord provides a Word just when you need it. Have you ever had that happen to you?

Greg and I had a very nice Thanksgiving this year. It's been a while since his family had all been together. His sister Amy provided the most delicious meal and I was so thankful for the fun time we all had.

We all prayed a prayer of blessing and thankfulness for the Thanksgiving meal. And then Amy asked that we each share something for which we were thankful. It was so precious to hear Bryan, Julie, Sarah and Brittney share too.

But it wasn't all seriousness as Uncle Greg asked us to share one of our most embarrassing moments. That got everyone laughing and sharing things we hadn't known about each other.

And he actually got us arm wrestling with each other! Amy and I are both strong and we ended up in a draw. Neither of us was willing to give up; LOL.

As Greg, his mom and I were leaving his family was waving goodbye. So I snapped this photo. The only ones missing from Greg's family are his sister, niece and nephews who live in Maryland. We missed you ...Rox, Jason, Megan and Collin.


I missed my family who now lives in Florida but I'm thankful for Greg's family and how they've adopted me as one of their own.

I plan to be back blogging on my regular schedule and visiting my favorite blogs. Sorry I've not been faithful this week but I've much catching up to do.

Thank you for visiting Heart Choices and leaving your comments. I love to read each one of them.


QuickEdit

In Other Words Tuesdays ~ Busyness


Today I am pleased and honored to be hosting In Other Words Tuesday. I encourage you to join in even if this is your first time.

Simply write a post on the following quote and then link up with us below. It's fun to visit other participating blogs because we often have a unique approach to our weekly quote. I often learn much from others.

So here's my quote for this week:

I chose this particular quote since the holidays are a very busy time of year. Thanksgiving is over but Christmas will soon be here.

After all, there's much preparation involved to celebrate ...the birth of Jesus.

But are you becoming so involved and preoccupied with the events and traditions of Christmas that you miss out on what's most important?

Can you identify with any of these Martha traits?

  • House must be decorated and perfectly clean
  • Dozens of cookies made
  • Shopping for the perfect Christmas gifts for family and friends
  • Wrapping each present with the latest gift wrap
  • Baking pies and cakes
  • Sending Christmas cards to everyone you've ever known

Maybe you could add a few of your own?

But how about Mary? Martha was a bit irritated with her sister since she wasn't helping with all of the preparations. After all, they had a special visitor in their home and she wanted everything to be perfect.

But what did Jesus say to Martha?


"Martha, Martha," the Lord anwered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to what He said.

So how about you? Are you going to choose to be a Martha or a Mary this year?





QuickEdit
[name=DEBBIE PETRAS] [img=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2CDrwq9-7eo/WV6tdbP-QgI/AAAAAAACfb0/ViqQSnSVaDsMLXyz3AEEzZ5-78luBHOGgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Debbie%2BFace%2Bblog.JPG] [description=]