...a word from Kathy

T HIS is the time of the Christmas season that as a young girl I begin to moan..."Can we open our presents?  Please, just one?"  My parents denied this request over and over again until Christmas Eve. Their rule was that we could open only one gift on Christmas Eve; and unfortunately Mama got to decide which gift!!  As I child I hated this rule as I wanted to decide which gift I would open!  I think my children felt the same way as we continued the same tradition...and still do! Over 35 years ago, on Christmas Eve I was cooking special bread for friends.  I had been cooking all day long.  I was making cream cheese braids and it was a process of mixing, rising, filling, baking, waiting and then drizzling icing.  I was bone tired as we had prepared over 30 loaves of bread that day.   I had on my soiled apron, my face was flour-tinged, my hair was falling out of my pony tail, I had no makeup on and was ready to collapse.  It was around 6 p.m....

Mary and Joseph entered a tiny village with no where to bed; She was very pregnant and perhaps he was filled with dread. For where would they stay? This blessed couple on whom the Christ child lay. They were rejected by hotel and inn;  but had knowledge that new life was about to begin. Surrounded by the cold, the hay, the animals, the smell;  But grateful the day had ended; e're not so well. The stirrings began and soon came the One; Who knew what had truly now begun? Miles away the rough shepherds, like me and you;  Looked to the sky and were startled anew. But once they saw, once they heard; There was no question that life would forever be altered. They followed the love, they followed the call, they followed what their hearts could see. He had come.  Finally, finally He had come.  No more hollow hearts, no more tears, no more striving to be more, finally freedom to be, to be who He created me to be. Where do I find my...

We  are a people who like to know what's coming next!  As a young girl, I loved going to the State Fair in Jackson, Mississippi.  Foolishly, my girlfriends and I always wanted to visit the palm reader.  We were in middle school wanting to know what was coming next.  Will I find a boyfriend who will like an overweight girl with freckles?  Will I go to college? Will I marry?  Will I have kids?  The palm reader would read our palms and all the answers seemed amazingly similar for each of us but we somehow didn't notice.  For she was telling us what we wanted to hear.  So, we happily paid our few coins and anticipated our futures! Much more significantly, God also fore told some great news about our lives.  The Christmas season offers us a joyful type of fore telling....Christmas is coming!  Get ready!  Only 17 shopping days left!  Children are anticipating, excited for Christmas morning.  We know what's coming a...

S ome dear friends of ours are expecting.  They're expecting their first puppy!  This pup will be the first "baby" for these friends.  One of these friends has been hoping and praying for this gift, while the other was initially more hesitant but has now come to fully embrace the idea.  Their joy is palpable.  We've seen pictures of the family, heard stories about the naming, learned about house preparation.  And what we see in their faces is pure, delightful JOY. A new world is about to open to them.  And for those of us who have walked this road ahead of them we know puppy-life is so very sweet...and so very, well..."puppilicious".  It's a world filled with exuberance, excitement, confusion, difficulties, crying (only from the pup) but forever love.  The shoes you love...gone.  Grandmother's hand-made quilt...in tatters.  Newly planted flowers...goodbye. And yes, we'd all have a puppy again and again.  For there is nothi...