My first experience with English Classes as a ministry began in 2005. My two-year-old daughter met a girl from South Korea on the playground, so I naturally met her Mom. I invited them to attend a local ministry that offered free English classes, as well as other classes for internationals who could already speak English well. I had no idea this would be the beginning of a 20 year journey of exciting ministry!
Chances are, you unwrapped a great gift this past Christmas. Maybe it was a new sweater in your favorite color, tickets or a gift certificate to do something you couldn’t justify paying for, a gadget to make your life easier, or maybe something to encourage your latest hobby. But there is a difference between opening a great gift and really receiving it. You have to take care of the sweater and wear it regularly, redeem those tickets, enjoy the benefits of that gift certificate, use the gadget and develop that hobby!
This new journey of grief looks nothing like I had imagined. I always thought I would be visiting my momma’s grave every day and sitting serenely as I talked to her and cried, telling her how much I missed her. Instead, the past three months have been some of the busiest and most stress-filled days of my life. The weird thing about grief is that life goes on.
I had the honor and blessing of getting to illustrate this year’s children’s Christmas book that our church will give away during our annual Christmas Eve Candlelight service. What Christ Brings is the third of these books that I’ve had the opportunity to be part of and each experience has been so unique for me due to the season of life I’ve been in.
This Christmas at Council Road, we are releasing an original song to go along with our Advent season. The song, “What Christ Brings” was written to encourage our church and remind us of the beautiful blessings that Christ brings to us as we celebrate this special season. It is always such a gift to hear the songs that my husband, Eric Wall, dreams up for our church and this one is definitely no exception.
Is it possible to feel thankful for anything when you are reeling and in despair? I found myself grappling with this very question five years ago in the days leading up to Thanksgiving of 2019. My newly adopted daughter had shockingly just been diagnosed with cancer. Faced with the uncertainty of my daughter’s future, I was wrestling with the idea of being “thankful” for anything when my circumstances felt distressing. Reflecting on that hard season, I want to offer four suggestions for discovering gratitude and thanksgiving when faced with difficult circumstances.
Last year, I had the privilege of contributing to an Advent devotional book called Advent: Preparing for the Arrival of the Savior. My contribution included Christmas and Advent hymns from church history, with a peek into the theology and history of the hymns. For our blog post today, I have included the introduction that I wrote for that devotional. I hope it encourages you in your own Advent studies this year. May the hymns you sing during Advent encourage and strengthen your faith as you worship the birth of our Savior!
