Christmas Joy

        What robs your joy during the Christmas season – disappointments, financial stresses, loneliness, busyness, painful memories, or even just being grumpy? In John 15, Jesus taught that He is the Vine and believers are the branches. Furthermore, if we will abide in or stay closely attached to Him, His Word, and His love, His joy will be in us and our joy will be full! The joy of the Lord does not depend on outer circumstances but rather the inner heart of lovingly serving others and helping them attach to Jesus!

         Before you were even born, God knew your name. He knew you (and I) would make mistakes; He knew we would sin. Since the payment for sin is death and separation from God forever, He loves you and me so much that God sent His Son, Jesus, to pay that death penalty for us. Over two thousand years ago, Jesus died on a cross in your place so that you may receive forgiveness for your sins and the free gift of never-ending, eternal life with God.

         I pray that you have a personal relationship with Jesus. I hope you talk to Him through prayer, listen to Him through His Word, and trust Him daily to meet your every need.

         If you don’t have that close friendship with Jesus, please hear me carefully; God wants you close to Him, and He has a Christmas gift for you today. It’s a FREE gift of GRACE – God giving what we do not deserve and cannot earn. He said to take His gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life by faith and belief in His Son, Jesus.

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,

so that you will abound in hope by the power of

the Holy Spirit!” (Rom. 15:13)

May you walk through this Christmas season closely attached to Jesus,

and may you have a JOYFUL, JOYFUL Christmas!

(Jill Glassco, author of  The Schoolhouse)

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A Grandson's Tribute

       Mother with 3 of her 8 grandchildren (Virginia, Ben, and Rebecca) on Christmas Eve 1985

            My beloved mother's last hours on this ol' earth were just like she would have planned them had she been awake - her children and grandchildren gathered around her telling "remember whens" and laughing together. My brother took the first night watch so I could rest. Sometime after midnight, our eldest son, Ben, spent that vigil holding his grandmother's hand and praying for her. Then, Ben slipped back to his bedroom and wrote:

~ Benjamin P. Glassco,  June 20, 2003 ~

      Death: a subject that most of us do not like to talk about.  In fact, some of us may never give it any thought. One may not think about death until a friend or family member passes away. It is then that we stop and realize how short is the time we spend here on earth. We just go about our daily lives, and we miss out on the reason why we were put here on earth to live in the first place.

         Early Friday morning, around 1:00 a.m., I was having trouble sleeping, so I decided to go upstairs to be with my grandmother. I felt that the Lord had kept me up for a reason, and it was to go pray that my grandmother would remain comfortable in these last few hours and that He’d come take her home swiftly and pain free. It was while I was standing beside my grandmother’s bed that I began to think about life and death. I realized that my grandmother’s life is an awesome example of how we’re supposed to spend our time here on earth.

         Grandmama was a very loving and caring woman. She was faithful and supportive all 50 years of her marriage to Winfred Watson. My mother will always tell stories about when my grandmother was battling breast cancer, and how Grandmama would always talk about how she was going to out live Pawpaw and she did. She was also a wonderful mother that raised three children into fine adults, who then followed her example and raised wonderful families of their own. Grandmama started a chain reaction that I one day hope to continue. But the main reason Grandmama is a great example to us is because she lived her life glorifying God; which the Bible says is the reason why we were created. That's found in Isaiah 43:7.

         Our fun memories and time spent with Grandmama will always be missed, but now she is in a place where there is no suffering or pain. I’m sure right now she is worshiping the Lord with Pawpaw; and for those who know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, we will soon be with her. Because our time here on earth is only a speck on the timeline of eternity, and with no track of time in heaven, I’ll be worshiping right along beside Grandmama before she realizes any time has past at all.

"If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and

receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also."

John 14:3

  

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Storms

          The disciples left the crowds one evening and took Jesus with them in their boats. While Jesus lay sleeping in the stern, there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves began crashing over the boat, filling it with water. They woke Him and cried out in terror, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” 

(Mark 4:36-38)

In the aftermath of an unrelenting Sandy, some may be asking, “Lord, do you not care?”

God invites you to come to Him to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).  Jesus implores you to cast all your anxiety on Him because HE CARES (greatly) for you (1 Peter 5:7).

“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

May the God of all comfort, comfort you by His grace and love in whatever storm you are facing.

The storm continued throughout the afternoon. Tall trees swayed in the blustery wind like wooden masts on a rocking ship. By evening, the temperature had dropped drastically changing raindrops into white flurries – the first snow of winter.¹

¹   Jill Watson Glassco. The Schoolhouse (Peoria, AR: LifeHouse Publishing, 2012), 40.

(The Schoolhouse is available online at Amazon.com)

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Father's House

                                                              Pryor Institute: 1887-1910

Marion County High School: 1910-1967

Jasper, Tennessee

            In the late 1880s, Washington and Jackson Pryor, along with A. L. Spears, gave land and money to construct Pryor Institute. The story’s told that the Pryor family built this local college so that their children could be educated close to home. In 1910, the Marion County High School Commission purchased the building from the trustees of the Pryor Institute and established the county’s first public high school. Unfortunately, in 1967, the beautiful landmark was torn down. (After graduating from Marion County High School in 1916, my grandmother received her first teaching assignment: a one-room, eight grade schoolhouse nestled in those picturesque mountains of east Tennessee.)

            In John 14:2-3, Jesus told His disciples, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places…for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also (forever).”

            “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven” (2 Cor. 5:1).

            “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:16-18).

Come and go with me to my Father's house.


It's a big, big house with lots and lots of room.


A big, big table with lots and lots of food.


A big, big yard where we can play football.


A big, big house, it's my Father's house.¹

¹ “My Father’s House” by Newsboys

           

              (Grandmother’s story is retold in The Schoolhouse; available online at Amazon.com)         

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