In my stuff is a wrinkled, smudged piece of note book paper with the attached poem jotted down. I kept it in my Bible so that it would never be lost, and then I moved it to Marthas Bible. I got it out recently and added it to a picture. My daughter, Joanna wrote this Christmas poem when she was only 12, and I thought you might enjoy it since it is the Christmas season. For the first several years of our childrens lives we did not have a TV (thanks be to God!) and our little ones, being home schooled, and except for church not having that much so called "socialization," were occupied with reading and inventing things to play. Christmas was their favorite time and they would start singing Christmas carols in July! No children past or present loved it more than they. We still have enough decorations to cover the White House inside and out. They had scores of stuffed animals and would play church. The little stuffed creatures were arranged in rows and were the congregation. Nathan and Joanna (Laura was still on Jesus knee at that time) would conduct the services with singing and preaching. What a sweet recollection.
We lived in our old, run down drafty trailer in those days and were were poorer than the proverbial church mice. As a matter of fact the church mice felt rich compared to us and would come by and leave offerings of food! A mistake? I worked hard, as hard as any man, but I guess the Lord God was teaching me no us something. Nathan and Joanna shared a single bed in those days in the 20 x 20 room I had built on to the old trailer. Their room was 6ft. X 12ft. inside. It contained their single bed, a "chester drawers" and little else since there was no room. They would sleep with their heads at opposite ends of the bed and sometimes it was hard to get them to be still.
One very cold Christmas back in the 80's, Nathan prayed one night that it would snow. We awakened to a six inch covering of white the next morning and Nathan became a solid convert to the power of prayer! We would make pop corn on those frosty winter's nights and watch some bible stories on the "show and tell" screen. We had seen them so many times we could recite the lines along with the narrator but we never tired of it.
We have seen more properous times along with many hard times since those wonderful, wonderful days gone by, but nothing has yet equaled let alone surpassed the memories of those cold snowy Christmases past in that drafty old trailer that was filled to bursting with the love of God and love for one another. Behold, where ever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am, right in the middle of them!
I placed her poem on a retouched, fuzzed photo of "our old Christmas tree" that I took a few years ago in out present home.
May God help and bless all of you that believe this Christmas, and through out the coming year. Never have we needed the help of the grown up Christ child more than now. May all of those who do not believe come to know the calloused but gentle hands of the carpenter from Bethlehem.
If you have a home filled with love, then you will never be more prosperous than now.
Merry Christmas....!
We lived in our old, run down drafty trailer in those days and were were poorer than the proverbial church mice. As a matter of fact the church mice felt rich compared to us and would come by and leave offerings of food! A mistake? I worked hard, as hard as any man, but I guess the Lord God was teaching me no us something. Nathan and Joanna shared a single bed in those days in the 20 x 20 room I had built on to the old trailer. Their room was 6ft. X 12ft. inside. It contained their single bed, a "chester drawers" and little else since there was no room. They would sleep with their heads at opposite ends of the bed and sometimes it was hard to get them to be still.
One very cold Christmas back in the 80's, Nathan prayed one night that it would snow. We awakened to a six inch covering of white the next morning and Nathan became a solid convert to the power of prayer! We would make pop corn on those frosty winter's nights and watch some bible stories on the "show and tell" screen. We had seen them so many times we could recite the lines along with the narrator but we never tired of it.
We have seen more properous times along with many hard times since those wonderful, wonderful days gone by, but nothing has yet equaled let alone surpassed the memories of those cold snowy Christmases past in that drafty old trailer that was filled to bursting with the love of God and love for one another. Behold, where ever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am, right in the middle of them!
I placed her poem on a retouched, fuzzed photo of "our old Christmas tree" that I took a few years ago in out present home.
May God help and bless all of you that believe this Christmas, and through out the coming year. Never have we needed the help of the grown up Christ child more than now. May all of those who do not believe come to know the calloused but gentle hands of the carpenter from Bethlehem.
If you have a home filled with love, then you will never be more prosperous than now.
Merry Christmas....!
