Where is your Bethlehem?

   

      Happy Sunday evening,  I am running late and apologize, my days and nights seem to have switched around and I find myself up at all hours of the night and then sleep off and on all day long...not like me at all! I pray that your day has been filled with only good things and if anything negative did try to push its way into your life that you called upon our Father in Heaven to take care of it for you! I know that with the CHRISTmas season a lot of stress, drama, and woe is me, comes along! I know, I begin to get a little on edge this time of year and I have to be very creative to not let myself get down and out! I have been away from my family for 18 years now and have always had to share my daughter with her father who lived in another state for the holidays so I have done my time of being alone during the festivities! It makes it better when I can call someone that I know makes me smile when I am down, I seek out those who lift me up in mood. I hope that if you are having a "time" with the holidays that you too will find something that makes you smile, sometimes listening to your favorite music can do this for you, no matter what it is, do it, find your smile, once you find your smile maybe you can share it with someone who is in the same place you WERE!
     In prayer this evening I asked our father in heaven to bless each of you with your needs, he knows the desires of our hearts and he knows what is needed to carry us through, he will  never let us down and will never step away from us as long as we let him know we want him in our life. I asked him for peace, calm, comfort and always his love. I asked for a special prayer for a friend whose mother has just been diagnosed with lymphoma cancer, Father God lay your hands upon this lady and take the cancer from her body, bless her and her family with hope and with strength. I lift all of you who are struggling in any situation and ask God to continue to hold you in his arms and to allow his power to be yours so that you can overcome. I ask mercy, grace and blessings in the name of our savior Jesus Christ, amen.

Tonight's story is a wonderful one, in a way it is clarifying to me...I pray that it will help you to understand better that no matter what you are faced with...boom...with God on our side we can make it!

Where Is Your Bethlehem?

by Marilyn Ehle 

Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem… He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  Luke 2:4, 5

As the crow flies, it was a journey of approximately 100 kilometers but traveling over hills, through villages and around rivers would likely have made the trip even longer. Christmas pictures always show Mary riding a donkey but we really have no idea of their mode of travel. In any case, whether on foot or on the back of a swaying brown animal, it wasn’t an easy journey, especially for a women nearing the end of her pregnancy.

Why did she go? True, government officialdom decreed a census and that everyone must go to one’s “own city,” the place their families called home, for this official registration and counting. Perhaps Mary was also quite ready to leave the village of Nazareth where tongues were wagging about her pregnancy and unmarried status.

But Mary and Joseph knew they were going far from family and into a city whose streets would be clogged with traveling strangers. They were assured of no warm welcome, no cozy place to birth the expected child. Perhaps they hoped for a small house or a distant relative or a way for Joseph to earn money for their keep, but in almost every way, they were traveling into the unknown. The journey was long and hard, the destination uncertain.

Nearly nine months before their arrival in Bethlehem, Mary spoke life-changing words to God, words that were to comfort her in the many uncertain years ahead. “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” With those simple words of faith, she could endure the long journey on the back of a donkey, the cold streets of Bethlehem, the staring faces of strangers, and even the crude stable with its straw-lined manger.

Where is your Bethlehem? Has the path been long, the people uncaring, the circumstances burdensome? When we submit ourselves as servants to a loving God, we can—in quietness and confidence—add “May it be to me as you have said” no matter the place or position in which we find ourselves.

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Would you like to know Jesus?

You can have peace and find hope and know forgiveness through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here's a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I want to know You personally. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to You and ask You to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Bring peace to my world this Christmas. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.

If this prayer expresses the desire of your heart, pray it right now and Christ will come into your life as He promised. If you invited Jesus Christ into your life, thank God often that He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal life.