Christmas season thoughts

 Our son used to call me in the middle of the week and paraphrase what the sermon was about at his church, Gender Road Christian Church. the previous Sunday.  Had a great memory.  Not me.  The sermon is gone by the time I leave coffee time (which this week included donut holes). Aaron Thompson is a fine preacher, probably the best on our staff, and I know it was good--from Isaiah 55--but by the time I chat with a few friends it's gone.

I always enjoy seeing the young couple with 7 kids.  They are all beautiful and well-behaved, and even with that new baby that was baptized 2 weeks ago, mom is as slim and trim as a teen-ager.  I particularly watch the fourth one--we prayed for him for weeks and weeks after he was born because he was a preemie.

Yesterday I attended at our Mill Run location the second funeral in a week--Tim Robison.  I didn't know him, only his wife, but by the end of the service I really wondered why God called him home (b. 1960). He had such a fine record of service for God--even as a young man. We definitely need more men like that, and his wife and two young adult sons also needed him.  We will always miss our brother-in-law Bob, whose service we attended on Monday in Indianapolis.  He was 88 and it was wonderful to see his family who had been with him his last weeks.

The final candle in the wreath arrangement at UALC was lit today as we sang Oh come Oh come Emanuel.  I couldn't help but recall that terrible Christmas of 1976.  I think that was the year.  At that time each Sunday during advent had a different family come forward and light the candle, and it was our turn at the early service.  At the later service, another family had the honor.  The next day, the mother of that family shot and killed her husband, 2 of her children and the dog, with a third child escaping the tragedy and running to a neighbor. Then she turned the gun on herself. It was so awful the congregation was reeling for weeks.  And now I can't remember their names. 45 years ago.