On the tenth day of Christmas my True Love gave to me… ten filled commandments. The Ten Commandments, the foundation of every just system of law, represents how God wants to be treated and how that treatment works itself out in our flesh-and-blood relationships. Jesus taught that God’s intent for Read more
On the ninth day of Christmas my True Love gave to me…nine fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control: the nine-flavored fruit is fragrant evidence of the presence and work of the God’s own Spirit in our lives. It describes a living still-life Read more
On the eighth day of Christmas my True Love gave to me…eight days of His Name. Jewish babies are traditionally given their names on the eighth day after their birth. This one had His declared before His birth, but on the eighth day, it was official! What’s in this name? Read more
On the seventh day of Christmas my True Love gave to me…the seven-fold Spirit. Of all the gifts given us by our True Love, this one is the most intimate! This is the one that makes “Emmanuel” mean something! “God With Us” becomes “God Within Us” because of this gift: Read more
On the sixth day of Christmas my True Love gave to me…six days of nature. Beauty. Adventure. Science. Revelation! All these are what our True Love brought us in this gift. God make the world and everything that is in it in six days…out of nothing…except the words from His Read more
On the fifth day of Christmas my True Love gave to me…five healing wounds! The wounds in His hands are to cure all the wounds we receive at the hands of others, and all those our own hands cause. The wounds in His feet are medicine for the wounds we Read more
On the fourth day of Christmas my True Love gave to me…four gospels! We have four accounts of Jesus’ earthly life. Sometimes they match up exactly and other times seem very different. Eye-witness accounts are that way. We remember different details, see things from a unique vantage point. Each of Read more
On the third day of Christmas my True Love gave to me… three witnesses. As a follower of Jesus, I am ever in process…sometimes I look more like Jesus and sometimes much less. It is in those “less” times that I have doubts and questions about whether I am truly Read more
On the second day of Christmas my True Love gave to me…two births! If you are reading this, you have been born once. You have 23 sets of chromosomes. You are a human. In coming to earth as a human, Jesus brought us the gift of second birth. All who Read more
This day of celebration can be so obscured by the food and the gift-giving that we miss the important, far-reaching gifts brought by the One who truly loves us. On each of the next twelve days, I will be posting a short meditation on what our Bridegroom has brought us Read more