December 5 PEACE

Sunday:  Once it got dark, Emma and I sat together around our Advent wreath to celebrate PEACE. During our volunteer time in the morning, the lead teacher "no-showed" (without warning) and we found ourselves with 21 three-year-olds without a storyteller. Ginny is the one who transitions us from playtime to our circle time for singing and then into our story, which she prepares ahead of time. It's not that the story is complicated, but she usually has some visual aids to help focus the children as she teaches. We did the best that we could! But we found ourselves a bit lacking in the PEACE category. We had several youth volunteers: Lucas and Giles--who generally yuck it up together--they are somewhat helpful, but many times they forget WHY they are volunteering and just toss basketballs around ... hmm. We also had Tessa and Audrey--sisters, who are extremely helpful. They agreed to do the singing time with the children, so that was good. We sang "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" (with motions, naturally), and "Our God is SO Strong". The story today was about the angel visiting Mary to tell her she would soon birth baby Jesus and we had pictures to color, so that went okay as well. But we were SO tired when we got home!

PEACE. Calm. Absence of mental conflict. Assurance that all will be well. "Christ HIMSELF is our PEACE" we read in Ephesians 2. He alone has settled all of the differences we had with God through His death and resurrection.  

In our guide from church, we were instructed to read the story of David and Goliath from The Jesus Storybook Bible, which very much condenses the story down to the basics of David trusting God during an incredibly difficult time. The faith David carried with him to the battle with Goliath gave him great confidence that God would give him victory. If David was afraid on the inside (and the Bible doesn't tell us that he was), he surely did not demonstrate it on the outside. He was confident in God's strength and faithfulness. We were asked to think of circumstances in our lives this week where we were afraid, or felt vulnerable and alone. Emma shared a circumstance at work that was troublesome to her. I shared feeling overwhelmed with fears of failure with my grandkids. We had such a nice time talking together.

We sang the first verse of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" several times. We sat at the piano and I quietly played it through once, and then we sang it together. E minor is my favorite key. This song is a Latin hymn dated back to 1710. 

O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel; that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

I can't explain to you how lovely all of this was, how my heart was SO FULL I thought it would burst ...  

We ended with prayer that God would help us to confidently trust Him throughout our week ahead.