HOPE for the Holidays - Day 19

My father and mother, 1944
Mt. Rubidoux: Riverside, California

"May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace...Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ...God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ...I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you may grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident HOPE He has given to those He called..." (Eph. 1:2,5-6,16-18)

Story of HOPE:

         Each time mother heard the song I'll be Home for Christmas, she would say, "That one makes me cry." 
        After their wedding and a brief honeymoon in Alabama, Mama and Daddy boarded a train destined for Camp Anza in Riverside, California. In those perilous days of World War II, the U.S. Army processed Daddy to go overseas, and for the next three Christmases, my parents lived an ocean apart. 
        Thanks be to Jesus, the war ended, and Daddy came home. Every yuletide season afterwards in their 50 years of marriage, my mother and father enjoyed Christmas together.

        Spiritually speaking, you may be an ocean away from God this Christmas season. I HOPE you understand that Abba Father longs to have you close to Him. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to give you HOPE and to flood your hearts with His LIGHT and LOVE through faith in Jesus Christ.

O wandering soul, won't you please come home for Christmas?

"The Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him!" (Isa. 30:18)