The Son and the Sand – December 2003

The Son & the Sand Newsletter December 2003 Edition Christmas Time is Here Again Can you believe it? Christmas is almost here. We are excited about another wonderful holiday season. This is our fifth season of Christmas with the snowbirds of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. Betty Glasscock is back again for another music filled snowbird season. Plans are in place to incorporate even more retired volunteers this season. Ray and Nancy Holley will be leading worship at Luxury RV again this year, and Gene and Ruby Buttrey are also planning to partner with us in ministry at Island Retreat RV for another season. We will also be putting some snowbird Bible studies in place with the help of Bill and Shirley Crews and David and Marilyn Irby. The snowbird outreach team of Gulf Area Resort Ministries is a blessing to so many. We are excited to be a part of what God is doing in the lives of the winter visitors on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. Please pray these abovementioned partners in ministry. Their love for the snowbirds is an inspiration and example that many can be encouraged through. Thea and I arrived home from our Montana vacation a few days ago. It was a blast. We cross country skied, downhill skied, had an excellent time on Thanksgiving Day with resort missionary – Brad Lartigue, and saw some of the most beautiful snow-covered mountains we had ever seen. We also drove over to West Yellowstone to check out some wolves, bears, and the quaint little mountain town. It was a vacation and visit with a friend that we will always remember. The Christmas season has arrived, and we are so excited to see so many of our snowbird friends. The Greatest Gifts Every year at the end of December we celebrate Christmas. Over the past three or four years, every year at the end of December I also celebrate my wife, Thea’s birthday. The traditions of Christmas and Birthdays both add up to gift buying. Giving and receiving gifts at Christmas time and at birthdays isn’t something we have to do. But if I didn’t I probably be in deep trouble. Imagine if you’re wife’s, husband’s, child’s, or someone else close to you, birthday rolled around and you didn’t get anything for them. You’d be up the creek without a paddle. This may be a sore subject for some of you. Some of you guys aren’t real comfortable with this subject because this may have actually happened a few years back and Misses may not ever let you live it down. Imagine if your children woke up on Christmas morning, rushed into the room where they traditionally found lots of presents on Christmas morning, and they found no gifts under or around the tree. What a disappointment it would be for them. I remember experiencing this type of disappointment one Christmas. Even though there were gifts to open on Christmas morning. There weren’t a lot in comparison to what I (maybe a little spoiled) was accustom to. I was probably about 11 or 12 years old. We woke up on Christmas morning. I put on my brand new blue flannel P.J.’s that my Grandmother had given me the night before at our Christmas Eve family get together. I rushed into the living room to look what wonderful gifts I would be opening and playing with. And there they were. My brother and I tore into a few gifts. I was so excited. Greatttt! I got the robot that transformed into an evil insect people eater. That was just what I wanted. Alright!!! I got the camouflage pants. Now I could hide in the woods with my neighborhood pals and be virtually undetectable by my brothers crew of friends. We could bombard them with pine comb grenades and they’d have no idea where we were. O.K. I got some black socks to wear to church, hey! I could wear these with my camouflage pants to increase my invisibility. In the mist of my present opening, as I began to run out of presents to open, I began to watch my brother dig into his stuff. Hey! He got the camouflage pants too. Now he would be hiding out in the woods too, and terrorizing me and my friends as well. He got the black socks too. No robot that transformed into an evil insect people eater, instead he got a hand saw for fort building. Maybe I could borrow that from him sometime. Pretty soon all the gifts had been opened and he and I began toying with our new gifts. It didn’t take long for me to figure out how to convert my robot into an insect. After all I had about a dozen other robot toys that were a lot like it. As my brother and I looked around the opened gifts we both began to get a strange feeling. And we began to ask that question that semi-spoiled kids ask on Christmas – Is this it? We made eye contact with a little bit of a puzzled look on our faces. I began to ponder the past years of Christmas mornings. Last year it seemed like we had gotten a lot more stuff. Didn’t we? I think there are many people in the world. People that are asking that same question my brother and I were asking. They don’t ask with words. They sometimes reveal the question through the decisions they make. Through their lack of hope and meaning that translates in the way they live their lives. They’ve gone all their lives and now they want to know – Is this it? Is this all life has to offer? Is this all I’m going to get out of this life? These people are those who haven’t experienced the Hope, the Peace, the Joy, and the Love that we have been offered through Jesus Christ. They feel like they should be getting more out of their lives, they feel like something is missing, they are left puzzled unsure of why they aren’t getting more. Like me at age eleven thinking to past Christmases, they think back to times in their life when things were different. When things were better. But they have no idea how their lives can be different. My Dad began to sense his twelve and thirteen year old’s confusion that Christmas morning. He knew we felt like something was missing. So he spoke up. “Guys, I think there is one more gift to open. It’s down in the basement. My step mom urged us to put on our new Christmas totes – those cool thick socks with the tread on the bottom. We ran like wild horses to the basement to see what gift awaited. It was the greatest gift I’d ever gotten. A GO-CART. A fire engine red, single seat, 5-horse power, Go-cart. What I thought was going to be a big let down sort of Christmas was actually the best Christmas ever! We as believers are kind of like my dad in my wonderful Christmas memory. We know where to find the greatest gifts. The Hope, the Peace, the Joy, and the Love. The greatest gifts are found through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Let us share the greatest gifts : the Hope of Jesus ISA 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Let us share the greatest gifts : the Peace of Jesus LK 2:13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, LK 2:14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” Let us share the greatest gifts : the Joy of Jesus of LK 2.10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Let us share the greatest gifts : the Love of Jesus JN 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Let us share the greatest gift: Jesus. 2CO 9:12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! One Last Thing James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. In Christ, Jeff Ford