Dear Glen Mar,
Merry Christmas! As you may know, Christmas is not just one day, it’s a whole season (hence the song “12 Days of Christmas) that starts on Christmas Day and runs through Epiphany on Jan. 6. My prayer for you is that this Christmastide can be full of meaning and peace and health and joy. I’m so grateful for the celebrations of Christmas Eve, and for the ways that Christmas was NOT canceled this year!

Dear Glen Mar,
For this pondering, I offer to you a devotion that I wrote a long time ago…it came to mind as I was reading Isaiah 65:17-25 this morning as part of my prayer time.
My first Bible I ever received or read was a children’s Bible, third grade, 1978, given to me by my first pastor. On the back cover was a piece of an art project I had done in Sunday School that had become permanently affixed there.

Dear Glen Mar,
I’m grateful for Journey to Bethlehem and all the ways our church has pulled together to adapt it so that people could see it. Overheard: A child raising his arms triumphantly as his car left, saying, “Jesus was a BABY!!” and many, many thank yous. So….thank you to Margaret and her very large team of helpers—let’s get ready to enjoy Weekend #2!

Dear Glen Mar,
If Advent is a season of waiting, then it feels like we are quite good at that by now (waiting for COVID numbers to level off, waiting for a vaccine). But waiting for the Advent of our Lord is not like waiting for something we are unsure of, or waiting for that which we do not know. Our Advent is waiting for Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior. And this Jesus we are waiting for has already come.