As you can imagine, the happiness, joy and thankfulness is from being here in Austria and serving God. It still blows me away that He sends me here, but this time with my family. Each time I come I wonder what I will learn next and how will God use me to spread his word... this time the joy is overwhelming because it is also my family that was sent here too! So that means God has a plan for our whole family... will He use us here? will He mold us and shape us in to new people and use us back in America? or maybe a little bit of both.
But I am also sad today... this morning I saw a facebook post of a friend who I could call a refugee (someone that is a financial refugee I would say) and that person showed a pile of gifts that were given to her for her kids. The joy for the gifts is what me sad... because the joy of today is completely lost if you only focus on the gifts and making your kids happy through how many gifts you give. The joy of today should be a reflection of being thankful to God for loving us so much he sent his son to earth for us!! Later in the day my kids were fussing about their gifts they got because they weren't the exact ones they wanted... that made me sad to because though my kids are not greedy kids - a piece of them was disappointed in the gift. It made me sad that they only saw a gift in front of them a not the joy of the day.
As the day went on I had a hard time shaking my sadness, but then God blessed me with a beautiful reminder... at the Christmas meal everyone shared what they were thankful for. Not one person mentioned they were thankful for some gift they just received, they were thankful to God is several ways... for providing us this day, providing the time to spend with each other, providing the opportunity for each of us to meet each other, and of course for sending His son down to earth!
Then He continued with the blessing and the gentle reminder to me that not everyone sees today as a day to get gifts but as a day that through gifts we should see God's work being done in our lives. As we passed out the scarfs to all the ladies, they didn't just say thank you for the scarf but they said how thankful that God brought us all together today and that the scarfs would be a reminder of this day.
So today in the day of all the gift giving... enjoy your gifts, celebrate the new things you have... but take time to praise God for the person who has given you that gift, because every time you use that gift it will be a reminder of how blessed you are to have that person in your life. And may it be a reminder of how God loves you so much that He put that person in your life.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Jeni,
Jeni,
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