Grains of Sand

Pixabay I used to be the first one up on Christmas morning. Long before day officially broke, I'd quietly come downstairs and turn the tree lights on. Then I would sit and wait, and wait, and wait! Life is all about waiting, because we are always waiting for something. I have spent most of my life using public transportation so I always seem to be waiting for a bus, or a train, or a plane. We wait for doctors' appointments. We wait for good news, bad news, any news at all from family and friends! We wait for Spring. We wait for raises, and for the right house at the right price in the right place. We wait for the right gal or guy to come along (or we wait for the wrong gal or guy to go away—far, far away!). In Venezuela, people wait in long lines to get basic foods and medicine. In other parts of the world people wait for rain, or peace, or freedom. Some wait for the pain to go away. For Mary, nine months must have seemed like an eternity. But like every other pre...

Reading: Revelation 6-8 Countdown. The cradle is tightly bound to the cross. The first coming of Christ is connected unflinchingly to the second coming; once in humility and then again in glory. For God, there is no counting of days as we know it. We count the days until the 2012 dawns and a new year begins, but time doesn’t have the same meaning for Him as it does for us, though He is perfectly aware of it. But He knew the hours, days, weeks, months and years that would pass from the time His Son left heaven to become a child in a manger to the time when His Son returned, resurrected, to Him. And though the centuries have passed, He has ordained the moment when that beloved Son will come again in glory. It seems appropriate to finish the year reading about the stages and ages of the plan of God as it moves toward a completion and a new beginning. This life is, at times, pitiless. Thankfully, this life is not permanent. John records the create gathering of the saints from...