Archive for the Category »Seasons «

02
Feb
Three Free Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas

Valentine's love swansValentine’s Day is just two weeks away, and I’m on a hunt to find ways to show love. Like most people, our home economy is tight. Gift buying doesn’t fit into our budget at the moment, so expressions of love will have to be free.

Here’s some ways I’ve found to show sincere love—loving deeply from the heart (1 Peter 1:22).

Time

We live in a very fast paced culture. Many of us are workaholics. *scrunches face and looks guilty*

Giving the gift of your time to listen, laugh, and just “be” with someone is a gift that leaves warm memories in anyone’s mental scrapbook.

I remember wonderful afternoons of playing cards with my grandmother, fishing with my dad, hiking with my mom, and long, evening walks with my husband. These are the gifts of time I’ve received from people who have loved me and invested their time as a means to show that love.

Challenge: Purposefully set aside some time to do something special with someone you love. Make it cost effective by spending time, not money.

Thoughtfulness

It doesn’t cost much to show kindness to someone. It usually happens in the midst of doing something else— smile for a downcast face, a kind word shared with a friend, or a task completed for someone overwhelmed. Thoughtfulness = giving extra thought on how to best show kindness to an individual.

Challenge: Give the gift of thoughtfulness this Valentines Day.

Prayer

I know how special I feel when folks tell me they are praying specifically for me—especially when they share a Scripture promise that has inspired their prayer. How can you pray for someone in such a way that makes him or her feel loved and valued? Can you write your prayer on a card or send it by email? Can you put a prayer in a fortune cookie or in a bottle and give it to the person?

Challenge: Be creative and get prayin’!

Now it’s your turn: What is your favorite way to show love without spending money? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Susan Gaddis, Helping you build a spiritual legacy

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Category: Prayer, Seasons, Valentine's Day  Tags: , , , ,
26
Dec
Breaking News For the Day After Christmas

It is the day after Christmas–now what? This short Monday’s Moment clip brings it all home. Pass it on.

If you received this clip via RSS or email and cannot view it, please visit my Holy in the Daily blog to find out “the rest of the story.”

Are the people living in darkness around you seeing the light born at Christmas? If not, what are you going to do about it?

Susan Gaddis, Helping you build a spiritual legacy

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22
Dec
Who else Wants to Have a Meaningful Christmas?
Nativity art painting

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In order to have a meaningful Christmas, my mother had us four children memorize the Christmas story from Luke 2 when I was about seven years old. We stood on the big platform in front of the crowded church and recited that long chapter from memory. Mom was proud. I was so scared I thought I was going to pee my little girl panties. Except for the fear of embarrassing myself in front of our church family, the simple story of the birth of Christ from Luke 2 wrapped me in the warmth of a perfect Christmas.

Childhood is a long ago memory for me. I’ve grown up and discovered that I live in a broken world. I can’t solve the problems of my life, let alone the problems of the homeless or the broken. In reality, the world seems too complicated for the simple story from Luke 2. So it was definitely a Holy Spirit nudge when my advent devotions connected with Henri Nouwen’s words this morning:

Somehow I realized that songs, music, good feelings, beautiful liturgies, nice presents, big dinners, and many sweet words do not make Christmas. Christmas is saying “yes” to something beyond all emotions and feelings. Christmas is saying “yes” to a hope based on God’s initiative, which has nothing to do with what I think or feel.

Christmas is believing that the salvation of the world is God’s work and not mine. Things will never look just right or feel just right. If they did, someone would be lying . . .. It is into this broken world that a child is born who is called Son of the Most High, Prince of Peace, Savior.

The story is so simple, so crystal clear, so unpretentious. I do not have to do anything with it. I do not have to explain or examine these events. I simply have to step into them and allow them to surround me.

I like that–stepping into the story and allowing it to surround me. The story, of course, is bigger than Christmas. But at Christmas I remind myself that walking forward into the New Year, I walk with the One who is living the story through me. I can face a broken world once again.

What are you surrounding yourself with this Christmas? Is it making your Christmas meaningful? Why or why not?

Susan Gaddis, Helping you build your spiritual legacy

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19
Dec
Have You Made the Christmas Connection?

In case you missed it, the SkitGuys make the Christmas Connection real clear.

Are you passing on the Christmas Connection to those you work and live among? Has the big picture of Christ become part of your Christmas story?

Susan Gaddis, Helping you build your spiritual legacy

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12
Dec
Where’s the Line to See Jesus?

Have you ever visited the mall at Christmas time and seen the line of children waiting to see Santa? This music video with Becky Kelley asks the question, “Where’s the Line to See Jesus?”

If you received this video via RSS or email and cannot view it, please visit my Holy in the Daily blog to enjoy three minutes of Christmas truth and warmth.

Where are you looking to find Jesus this Christmas season?

Susan Gaddis, Helping you build you spiritual legacy

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08
Dec
How to Celebrate Christmas When You’re Not in the Mood
Christmas Bible text

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Are you avoiding Christmas this year because you aren’t in the mood? Is busyness or financial troubles making Christmas seem like too much of a hassle? I have a friend who doesn’t decorate for Christmas because she feels there is no one to enjoy it. The kids have all left home, and her husband has passed away. Another friend just isn’t in the mood for Christmas and plans to ignore it this year.

I can relate to sorrow invading the Christmas season, limiting our joy. I lost my mother a week before Christmas a few years ago, and it was a very sad time. The Christmas gathering at my house gets smaller every year as the kids marry and get involved in their extended families. Loneliness, sorrow, and depression are all valid feelings and shouldn’t be ignored during the holidays. But Christmas shouldn’t be ignored either.

Christmas isn’t about us. It is about the celebration of the coming of our King to planet earth–God becoming man. We call this season Advent, which means “arrival.” Christmas sets us up for the Christian’s main celebration of Easter–the death, burial, and resurrection of this God Man so that our sins could be forgiven. Without Christmas, there would be no Easter. In my book, celebrating Christmas is a form of worship.

Are you avoiding Christmas this year? Too busy? Financially strapped? Have sorrow, loneliness, or depression robbed you of the opportunity to worship the King?

Here are five tips for how to celebrate Christmas when you’re not in the mood:

1. Get yourself over to a senior citizen facility and ask the receptionist for the names and room numbers of those who have no family in the area to visit them. Then visit each senior and listen to their stories, pray with them, and leave a Christmas card or plate of cookies. If you have children still at home, get them involved in the baking and visiting.

2. Give a gift of value to those you love–a heart felt letter of appreciation for how their lives have touched yours, a pretty plate that belonged to your grandmother, a box of family recipes you’ve copied, or that set of teacups that are gathering dust in the china cabinet. Some things shouldn’t be left until you are too old to enjoy giving them away.

3. Plan a day to make Christmas crafts or cookies with your kids, grandkids, or some of the children from the church whose mother works and has little time for this kind of special activity. Play Christmas music, serve hot chocolate, and share with the children your memories of Christmas and how Jesus has impacted your life. Let them tell you their stories of Jesus.

4. Call your local homeless shelter or soup kitchen and find out what they need during December. Choose one avenue in which to help serve those less fortunate than you. Then do it.

5. Visit Ann Voskamp’s blog, A Holy Experience, and download her free Advent Jesse Tree book. For many years, our family has enjoyed the story of the coming of the Messiah as a December daily devotional. The kids enjoy putting the symbols of each Old Testament promise on the special tree as we slowly work our way up to December 25th, the day of the birth of the King. We use a traditional small fir tree, but my friend Vickie always finds a bare branch that she sprays white and sets in a weighted pot for her family’s Jessie Tree. Even though the kids have all left home, Vickie and Dave still celebrate Advent with their Jessie Tree.

What have you found helpful in keeping Christmas as a time of worship to our King? What brings Advent alive for you? I’d love to have your input.

Susan Gaddis, Helping you build your spiritual legacy

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Category: Advent, My village, raising kids, worship  Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
24
Nov
What’s in Your Spiritual Scrapbook?
Three generations of women view photos

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Stirred from my sleep by a brightly colored dream, I managed to focus on the pictures running through my head. I knew the Lord was trying to answer my quiet prayer before bed, “How do you want me to pray for my child? What promise from Scripture do you want me to hold onto and pray during this time?”

I saw the wind of the Spirit blowing the pages of a photo album, turning each page slowly enough for me to grasp that they contained photos of all the answered prayers I had prayed in the past for this particular son. The colors in each photo were alive and radiant and I knew, as only you can in a dream, that I was to review and re-pray each promise for the current situation.

In the midst of this prayer adventure, the last part of Hebrews 10:23 jumped off the Scripture page at me. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (italics added).

I felt such relief. My faith wasn’t what was going to see these promises fulfilled—God’s faith would. He is full of faith (faithful), while I am often half empty in the faith department. My responsibility is simply to pray the promise of Scripture, and in the praying my faith increases. I’m not responsible to keep the promise—that’s the Lord’s job, not mine.

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for a God who is full of faith and keeps his promises. I have a spiritual scrapbook to prove it.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with little opportunities to build a spiritual legacy with your family and friends.

To mimic a popular commercial, “What’s in your spiritual scrapbook?” (Really, I’d like to know. Share your remarks by clicking on the green “Comment” below.)

Susan Gaddis

Helping you build your spiritual legacy.

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21
Nov
What Every Mom Wants for Thanksgiving

How thankful I am, *sly smile,* that I’m not the only one with a sick sense of humor this Thanksgiving. I so related to this touching moment that my eyes leaked. Enjoy your coffee and a brief moment of pleasure this morning as two moms (the Skitzy Chicks) wish you a peaceful Thanksgiving.

If you received this Monday’s Moment clip via RSS or email and cannot view it, please visit my Holy in the Daily blog to allow your eyes to leak a little. Then pick yourself up off the floor and get your house clean for Thanksgiving!

So what’s left to do on your Thanksgiving preparations list? I’ll check in with you on Thursday to see if you survived.

Susan Gaddis

Helping you build your spiritual legacy

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17
Nov
Five Ways to Avoid Holiday Expectations That Can Kill Your Joy
Holidays ahead sign

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Have you ever noticed that Thanksgiving and Christmas often arrive with a warm glow of emotional expectations that can kill your holiday joy? You know what I mean; each year you embrace the hope that the season will be perfect–cozy gatherings, sparkling parties, family reunions, and happiness all around–truly a season of gratitude and worship of the God who became man.

Hidden in there somewhere, waiting to emerge with a human reality check, are the arguments with family, a cranky boss, and your sister Jane’s hurt feelings.

How do you walk through this jungle of holiday craziness to make moments that count for eternity? Your kids are watching you. Coworkers are noticing how you process the not-so-joyful moments of the holidays. Even the waiter at your favorite cafe’ is “reading” you. You are living a message. What that message is depends on you.

Here are five tips to get you through the season with the peace of Jesus as your reputation.

1. This season starts with thankfulness. That is something you are to give no matter how a situation might present itself. Thankfulness is a choice you make to express gratitude to the only One who sees the whole picture and understands the end from the beginning. It is an acknowledgement that He is God and you are not. He is a good God, and he deserves to receive thanks in all things (see 1 Thessalonians 5:18). You’ll be surprised at how much an attitude of thankfulness can bring joy.

2. You aren’t in heaven yet; so don’t expect people to act like angels. Lower your expectations of what people should and shouldn’t do. This way, you’ll appreciate people for who they are and not for what they do.

3. Every family has an Uncle Scrooge. If you don’t know who that is in your family, it is probably you. Lighten up. Enjoy the giving of your heart and don’t take notice when others are not so giving.

4. Keep your focus on God’s love–a love so strong that it broke through the sin barrier to create the God-man within the womb of a woman. Let love cover a multitude of sins (see 1 Peter 4:8). Forgive, express thanks, and tap into a love beyond your capacities.

5. Make time for Jesus. An extra few minutes of prayer throughout your day sets a peaceful heart atmosphere that cushions the unexpected intrusions of life (see Philippians 4:6, 7).

Are any of these tips easy? No. Do they work? Yes. You can do this–really! Take a deep breath, know that Jesus is right beside you, and walk into the holiday season with realistic expectations and a confidence born of the Prince of Peace.

What unreal expectations have you had during the holidays, and how have you dealt with them?

Susan Gaddis

Helping you build your spiritual legacy

If you found this post helpful, please pass it on via one of the Sociable buttons below. If you are interested in more articles like this, signup for my newsletter, Building a Spiritual Legacy, at http://www.eternalfoundations.com/contact.

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Category: Holidays, Personal growth, Relationships  Tags: , , , , , , ,
14
Nov
Here’s to a Thanksgiving Stuffed With Blessing and Humor

Does life seem too discouraging or busy to find things to be grateful for? Here’s a fun reminder of our blessings from the Skit Guys.

If you received this post via RSS or email and cannot view the clip, please visit my Holy in the Daily blog for a short reminder to count your blessings.

What blessings are you counting this Thanksgiving?

Susan Gaddis

Helping you build your spiritual legacy

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