Happy Christmas Eve, Eve!! Can you believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve? I am preparing the turkey for our family Christmas dinner this year. I found a new recipe that calls for onions, carrots, celery, apples, oranges, lemons, a variety of herbs and some garlic. You rest the turkey on the fruit and vegetables in the roasting pan and stuff the cavity with the fruit and vegetables. Then you make an herbed butter and rub in on the meat of the turkey not on the skin. I then poured a bottle of white wine in the pan and it is OMG good. Last year we ate the lunch prepared by the volunteers at MD Anderson Hospital.

Deb Koplen update: She had a chemotherapy treatment yesterday. It is her second treatment. She will have scans in about three weeks to see where she stands in terms of the cancer. She has been moved to Kindred Rehab Hospital. She is in Rm. 301 B. Geni and Travis went to the hospital and gathered all of the decorations from her room and took them to her new room across the street. They stayed and decorated the room. Miss Deb now has her pictures of Miss Chips, her beloved dog and all of her other homey fashions. The room looks really awesome. Go by and see her and the room if you get a minute. She loves visitors and a tall caramel macchiato from Starbucks if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

Hebrews 8: 11 says, “…for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.” I spent a portion of my theology paper identifying who God was. As Christmas Eve is upon us I can identify God in the person of Jesus Christ; God in the flesh. Emanuel, God with us. And to whom did God announce the birth of His Son? He announced the blessed birth to a bunch of shepherds. Simple shepherds, doing their job, “keeping watch over their flocks by night”. Shepherds and sheep don’t get a holiday. And the angel chorus announced to them that a savior was born in Bethlehem. And then who else got the pronouncement? The kings from the east who followed the star also came to the Christ child. The lowly to the great come to know Christ.

I think most of us fall somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. I am not a shepherd and I am not a king/queen. But I am Gaylene, child of God and daughter of the King of Love. God came to reconcile all the world unto Himself. He came for the lowly and the great and all in between. So if we are children of God that makes us brother to Christ. We are a part of quite a family!

God came to earth in the body of Christ so that all could know Him. Scripture does not say He came for some or a few or just the ones in a certain geographical area, but He came for ALL so that we might know Him. So tomorrow as you are preparing for the joy of Christmas, remember why and Whom we celebrate this wonderful season. When you look upon the gifts under your tree, remember Whom we adore, Whom we worship and Who came for ALL; Christ the Lord.

Take joy in the Christmas journey. See you in worship tomorrow night. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.