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| Darlene Thulson, Children's Pastor |
Last week my three year old grandson, Drew,
wanted to watch a short “Chip and Dale” on my tablet. As we sat on the couch together, I found the
Centennial Covenant’s Children’s Christmas program on YouTube that we had
posted. Drew and I decided to watch that first.
What a gift from God that turned out to be!
Since I was “directing” from the floor on the
Sunday we presented our program, I didn’t see what was going on by the stable. But
the video captured the whole thing.
While the kids were coming and going on the stage, acting out the
Christmas story, there was one “sheep” – and his “shepherd” – standing by the
manger, riveted on “baby Jesus.”
It was at that moment that the Holy Spirit reminded
me that the most important thing during this season of doing things for Jesus is to be with Jesus.
He is inviting
me to just be with Him,
to look into His eyes filled with love for me.
Words from an old song came to mind,
Turn
your eyes upon Jesus,
Look
full in His wonderful face.
And
the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In
the light of His glory and grace.
These last 10 days have been a snapshot of life in our broken world.
In the very
middle of Advent, a time of celebrating the coming of Emmanuel, a very
disturbed young man walks into his school and shoots an innocent girl sitting
in a hallway. The impact of that 80
seconds of destruction has been deeply felt in our church family. With seven students and two faculty (one of
them being my son-in-law) from our church being at Arapahoe High School, we
have felt the grief, anger and sadness in a huge way.
Yet, the darkness of that act cannot negate
the fact
that Emmanuel is with us.
As
more and more stories come out from that day, it is obvious that Emmanuel was
in that school, alongside the students and faculty. Emmanuel was with each of us as we prayed and
waited and helped as we could. Emmanuel
will bring redemption in ways we cannot see now.
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