Need Extra Energy?
“Beauty creates energy.” A quote received recently from a good friend. Perhaps that explains how energized we often feel during the Christmas season. We enjoy the red and green, lights, sights, smells and sounds of one of our favorite holidays even as we scurry about with our lists and wrapping.
“Beauty creates energy.” A quote received recently from a good friend. Perhaps that explains how energized we often feel during the Christmas season. We enjoy the red and green, lights, sights, smells and sounds of one of our favorite holidays even as we scurry about with our lists and wrapping.
I heard this quote at our “Holiday for Her” celebration where women in our church hosted tables set with their own china and invited old and new friends to enjoy a special Christmas brunch. Sounds of the season washed over us with memories and nostalgia as we shared a morning together.
Celebrations are God’s idea to remind us how He created us for joy and relationships. Christmas celebrates the incredible reality that Jesus joined our humanity one dark night in a Bethlehem manger. It occurred to me during a Christmas sermon that perhaps the clean straw in that manger provided the most sanitary cradle available at a time when science didn’t understand the concept of microscopic germs.
The humility and grace of the incarnation highlights the beauty of the Christmas season for me. (Philippians 2:5-9) My God reached down because I was unable to reach up. When the beauty of the incarnation impacts my heart, I am energized to worship the King of Kings “lying thus in lowly manger.”
Amid the celebrations, let His beauty energize you for the coming New Year.
Gwynne Johnson
Gwynne Johnson currently serves on the Board of Entrust, Inc., an international education and training mission where she authored the Entrust curriculum, Developing a Discerning Heart. She recently served as Co-Chair of the training project, Christian Women in Partnership, Russia and as Senior Director of Women's Ministry at Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas. Gwynne has a M.A. in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. She currently lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband of 58 years, Don. She works part-time in her daughter and granddaughter's bakery "The Best Box Ever," where she gets paid in cookies.
