Advent

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I Can’t Wait For December To Read This Book!

The air is turning colder, the days are getting shorter, and only a few tenacious leaves are still clinging to the trees.  You know what that means – Christmas is just around the corner!  And although we may try to deny it, with the holiday season usually comes busyness, stress, and the pressures to do and buy and go and see even more.  But, as beloved author Susie Larson says, what if there is a different way this year?  “Prepare Him Room: A Daily Advent Devotional” from Bethany House Publishers is a beautiful little volume that challenges us to ask the question: What matters most this Christmas season? Continue reading →

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A Must-Read Before Christmas!

For many people, Christmas can be a rather controversial topic. It’s supposed to be the “most wonderful time of the year”, filled with reflection on the baby in a manger and quality time with family. While this may be the case to some degree, there’s more to the story for most families. . . In reality, this season is also a time of hectic chaos, heartache that seems to build up from a difficult year, and frustration over what we wish was true but isn’t. In a new book from Baker Publishing, “Loving My Actual Christmas: An Experiment in Relishing the Season”, Alexandra Kuykendall unpacks some great insights into being present AND finding joy in our own actual, imperfect Christmases. Continue reading →

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A Special Advent Devotional (Guest Review by Hayley)

from-heaven-imageWe all know the Christmas story. Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior, the Great I AM in the flesh comes to earth as a humble infant, born of the virgin in a lowly Bethlehem stable. Truly, the story of Christmas, is one of the two greatest stories ever told (Easter being the other). But to many, the story is one that has become so familiar, that it has, perhaps, lost its feeling of wonderment. Sometimes it would seem as though we have lost our ability to truly be awed by the fact that the Creator of the universe came not only to us, but as one of us… yet so much more! Continue reading →