Life....to the Fullest

Can you imagine the stench? Joseph has walked and Mary ridden 90 miles in the scorching sun, the wind whipping around their faces and caking them with dust from the dirt road. More sweat pours from Mary’s brow as she experiences the pains of labor for the first time. The stable is packed with all the travelers’ animals. Flies buzz around them in the heat and the air is heavy with the smells of sickly sweet hay and manure. And into this, a baby enters. I have witnessed this kind of birth before. Woman sighs and baby falls right into the dirt, and in the dark of a tiny mud hut, with the light of just a thin candle, our eyes search for something, anything, sharp to cut the cord. Water is a luxury and too far to fetch at this hour so we wrap the baby in whatever filthy rag-scraps we can find without even wiping her off first. Joseph, still merely a child himself, searches for anything he can find in the dim light to cut the cord and swaddle his child, probably rags c...

Katie Davis said, "I don't always know where this life is going. I can't see the end of the road, but here is the great part: Courage is not about knowing the path. It is about taking the first step. It is about Peter getting out of the boat, stepping out onto the water with complete faith that Jesus will not let him drown."  Could it be that true courage is simply  trusting and obeying Jesus who demands my absolute surrender? I think so... Jesus said this about a woman he watched at the temple drop two very small copper coins into the offering: "This poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on"(Luke 21:3-4). I can hear the disciples saying, "It was just a penny". Don't we all? But it was her very last. Her health, her food, her shelter, her clothing...It was her all. But she gladly gave. This is courage. Giving Jesus all ...