Merry Christmas!

“He was born in an obscure village; the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then he became an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things usually associated with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is considered by many to be the central figure of the human race, and the leader of mankind’s progress. All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever sailed, all the parliaments that have ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned put together, have not affected the life of mankind on earth as powerfully as that one solitary life.” - from the Candlelight Processional & written by Dr. James Allan Francis

 

May the joy, love, hope, and peace of Christmas be with you always.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
from Russ and Susan