Category Archives: 7 Keep Christmas

My FAVORITE of all holidays (and holy days), rich with symbolism and meaning. It is not only deeply spiritual, but full of meaning I get to publicly share during the season, my best witnessing days each year!

We celebrate and we cry

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 5 Songs I am Singing, 7 Keep Christmas

Dave’s second novel, in proof-form (while he is diligently at work on the sequel to Altar) arrived by special messenger today:

 11 days until Christmas.  Dave got his first gift.  :)

It is a moment we have been waiting for and a moment to rejoice and celebrate.  But the school shooting in Connecticut makes it more difficult, realizing the hurt being felt by so many.

God help us.  For a world living in darkness, may we BE the Light of Jesus.  I hear the anguished words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow” in my heart today.  He wrote them shortly after his beloved wife had died in an accidental fire and he had just received word that his firstborn son had been severely wounded during the Civil War.  I believe we are all feeling what he must have as he penned the words:

“And in despair I bowed my head, ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said.  For hate is strong and mocks the song of Peace on earth, goodwill to men”

But I am telling you – Peace on earth, goodwill to men – is THE central message of Christmas.  It is THE declaration of the angels in the heavenlies, and it IS what God the Father wants to the people of this whole earth to KNOW

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

“Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”  Luke 2

Christ IS in Christmas, right this minute like He always has been and like never before.  Family of God – He is Emmanual, Christ in us and with us.  May He work through us to declare the heavenly blessing to a hurting world.  I am so sad that it takes a mammoth tragedy for us to understand just how much hurt and hopelessness is in the earth.  But WE have the Eternal to offer.  It is all around us.  Let us be like Him.  Let us give Him glory.

Jesus, You are the Light of the world.   Your birth brought hope.  Your death and resurrection gave us Life.  We choose life today.  We choose to act like You, talk like You, walk like You and represent You to a lost and dying world.  We will declare Your words, and Your will to a broken, hurting people, in Your blessed and holy Name.

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,

God is. not. dead. nor does He sleep

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With PEACE on earth, good-will to men.”

AMEN.  So be it.

 

Angel Dust is everywhere!

3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 5 Songs I am Singing, 7 Keep Christmas

Angels we have on heard high

Sweetly singing ore the plains

And the mountains in reply

Echoing their joyous strains

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Hot glue + fabric-scraps + gold poster board and tempera paint and some old frames + white poster board + Elmer’s and angel dust (aka white/clear glitter) = getting ready for the Nativity shoot on Saturday.

Stormie gave me the tsk, tsk “You make new angel wings every time.”

And Dave said: You need to be creating costumes we can keep for the theater company.

Easy sign-making tips here and here

But people – the grandbebes grow at a terribly fast rate and we haven’t done Nativity since 2010 and you just don’t need wings in your everyday life.  So I think poster board wings are fine and I choose hot-glue seams over sewing and an old-old-old pillowcase will make a fine head-dress for a shepherd and some actual used drop cloth will seem as though it has been on a real shepherd in the field keeping watch over the sheep by night.

Wings & Angel Dust:

Mary’s costume is almost done, just some ribbons and final touches  (“gown” made from a dollar store backed-table cover).  Two of three angels are complete.  Joseph and the shepherd next.  I am getting excited!


What is that sound? Is it the sound of angel choirs? No. It is Dave frantically vacuuming up the glitter. Good luck with that, honey!  :)

Merry Christmas, people.  12 days until THE day…Love & JOY come to you!

Repeating the sounding joy

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, 7 Keep Christmas

Because the angels are, in fact, STILL singing and because some of us need a messenger of the Lord right here, right now, I wanted to highlight this portion of the Rhoades Family Christmas card from 2010.  Because the angels that sang and rejoiced in the sky pronouncing PEACE & GOODWILL on the night Jesus Christ was born are the same angels who now attend to the household of faith!

“Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1.14

REJOICE, friends and familia! The angels of the Lord are near. Listen for the song – it’ll be good news for sure.

Now please go back and notice how many times the angels said: Fear not (do not be afraid)!

Thank-you, Jack Hayford, for preaching Christmas up year after year!

 

I hear angels singing praises

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, 7 Keep Christmas

Remember that song from the 1980s Hosanna! Integrity’s music???

Oh, I loved singing it.  And I just found myself singing it a few minutes ago as I am glittering up 3 sets of angel wings for a certain Nativity photo shoot this Saturday.  There are sparkles everywhere!

I hear angels singing praises,

I see men from every nation

bowing down before the throne

Like the sound of many waters,

like a rushing wind around us

Multitudes join the song

And a  symphony of praise arises

Tears are washed away from eyes

as men from every tongue and tribe all sing

Holy, holy, God almighty

Who Was, who IS and Is to come

All the angels are crying holy to the Lamb who sits upon the throne.

I think I love this song so much because I was 4 when I first {heard} the songs of Heaven and {saw} the multitudes in the Spirit.  And sometimes I still do.  Call me crazy, but as soon as my breath returns when I hear it (awe-awe-awe), I sing along.

From 2010:

It’s Christmastime.  And the angels are STILL singing!

The old song: http://youtu.be/uFU1VcF1w_c

Love my little Christmas Elves

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 7 Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think

They make life merry and bright!

You would not believe how much food the Grand-poppa made for them.  No you would not.

They posed themselves “with Santa” who is ever-so-barely visible.  They know I like to chart their growth each year next to my “fake Santa,” as Amelie calls him.

This year, Gavin is 9 1/2, Hunter is 8.  Guini is 7 1/3, Gemma May is 5 1/2.  Averi will be 5 on Feb. 2 and Amelie will turn 3 in the spring.

The girlie-cousins.

Hunter knows how to ham it up!

Gavinators.  Leading the way into silly!

Their decorated sugar-cone trees and cookies.

Merry Christmas one and all.

 

National Sound Check Day

1 Christ is All, 7 Keep Christmas

Get it?

Haha.  People are so funny.

Actually, I like this:

My friend Casree looked up the 12th book of the Bible (2 Kings), the 12 chapter and 12th verse and found that it was about the repair and restoration to the temple.  So she pronounced a blessing of restoration.  I like that!

2 Kings 12.12. NLT

the masons, and the stonecutters. They also used the money to buy the timber and the finished stone needed for repairing the Lord’s Temple, and they paid any other expenses related to the Temple’s restoration.

Restoration means the repair of something once whole.  Restoration is costly.  But it is possible, too and worth the cost.

Hang in there.

13 days until that blessed Christmas day!

 

 

 

 

Heaven on Earth

7 Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

Rock-man and Proxy

 

Resurrection Fellowship (www.rez.org) does Christmas great.  The “Christmas Letters” are really good, old-fashioned testimonies and very touching!  Great orchestra, dancers from adults down to 24″ tall, an orchestra, a choir – they do it all.

Rocky invited the wonderful Lewis “Proxy” Brown to sing on his song.  It was great.  Oh, and I didn’t know all the guys with the silver trash cans, but the amazing SETHRY CONNOR was one!  :)  Hi, Sethry!

I was here.  At Rez, in church.  This morning.

Just 16 days until the first day of Christmas.  :)

PS – If you have Apple TV, you can watch my Youtube channel: wholehearteddevotion (all one word).  Go, enjoy!

the baby emerges from the hiding place

1 Christ is All, 7 Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think

“For a woman giving birth, that moment when bebe passes, bloody and gasping, from the hiding place (where God has been knitting the child together) into air and bright light – is not that moment one of great triumph, the very glory of God revealed, somehow perhaps even symbolizing death passing to life?  Glorious!”  –From a blog I wrote awhile back, {see it here} about giving God the HIGHEST praise, the honor and glory that is His.

Thought about it in relation to Mary, giving birth to Glory…

The Simple Centerpiece

3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 7 Keep Christmas

Cast Party tonight!

Needed something that would not get in the way of lots of good food with a few dozen people (those who acted/sang/danced/built and created the “Merry Gentlemen” production last weekend) milling around (and maybe dancing).

Enter a tray and 5 candlesticks I had on hand.  Plus a roll of the $1 foil wrap from Target.  And a small bag of old-fashioned tinsel.  And one partridge.  For my pear tree, don’t ya know?

paper cone trees over candlesticks

Just rolled some paper cones and finished with a piece of Scotch tape.  Place them over the candlesticks and voila.  Quick, simple, reasonable and plenty of room for EATING!

PLUS?  17 days until Christmas!  Merry one, everybody!