This is the third Sunday of Advent
Today we are focusing on
The children in Sunday School are into their stories leading up to Christmas. They were looking at "Reassured by an Angel" telling the story of the angel message to Mary, then the angel message to Joseph and the birth of Jesus.
So when I was doing the children's slot at the start of our service this morning I talked about Joy because the messages by the angel to Mary and Joseph resulted in great joy for them.
We sang two choruses about Joy.
One is an old one but it doesn't matter about whether things are old or new but whether they help to teach our children about the truths in the Bible.
The other is a Christmas one about Joy which is sung to the tune of "Jesus loves me this I know"
Through my Advent reading plan I am now reading how
We have joy because
We have joy because
we worship Jesus the King
we know about Jesus
we are led to Jesus
Jesus has the victory over satan.
During Advent we think of various things about Jesus coming to earth as He did at His birth and as He will again in the future.
Are you full of Joy as you think of Christmas?
I've included a very short video about Joy at Advent time for you.
Are you still enjoying the joy of Advent or is it getting lost in the midst
of all the practical things?
I am thankful for the Hope and Love and Joy that we are reminded of during this Advent time.
Are you making time to remember the Joy of this Christmas time in the midst
of the busy days?
This past weeks I have been writing our Christmas cards for the UK and the rest of Europe.
This is not too big an amount of cards as a lot of our friends within Europe will be getting eCards from us.
Christmas Card 2013 |
Christmas Letter 2013 |
eCard 2013 |
I also wrote the cards for my little group of university mates because we were getting together this week for a meal and catch-up chat. It's been a year since we met up like this but before that it was over 7 years since we all met together because Fred & I had been living in Belgium.
Isn't it lovely that we can have friends that even though we don't see them often we can still fall easily into conversation again.
It was great to catch up last year and will be good this year again.