Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Do It Yourself? Or Let God?

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Sometimes doing things ourselves isn’t always the best idea, is it?

My mechanic certainly seems to think so.

I saw a humorous sign at his shop a few months ago when I was getting the snow tires put on my car. It read:

“Hourly Rates:

Regular rate: $1 per hour
If you watch: $2 per hour
If you help: $10 per hour
If you tried to fix it yourself and couldn’t: $20 per hour.”

I guess sometimes it’s simply better to let an expert handle things!

It’s no different in our lives, is it?

Sometimes God wants us to hand Him the reins and trust that He’ll come through for us. If we try to do things our own way, it can end up being costly and taking more time.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell · 2 Comments

Turn Over A New Leaf!

Image by Websi from Pixabay

If you live in an region where the trees drop their leaves in the fall, you’ll have noticed something.

Some species of trees are quick to cast off their leaves once the weather turns colder. In my area, the mountain ash trees are always the first to be denuded of leaves in October.

Other trees seem more reluctant to give up their leafy attire, holding on stubbornly until the frost and the wind finally make them release their grip. In my backyard, an old sugar maple is usually the laggard.

The most notorious holdouts, however, are immature beech trees. They retain their dried leaves through the whole winter, only dropping them when the new growth of spring finally forces the old leaves off the branches.

We can be a bit like young beech trees, too, I think.

We may hold on too long to something that isn’t working, despite evidence that we should let it go.

Or we may cling to a dream that is clearly unrealistic, even though God is trying to nudge us in a different direction.

Sometimes God is telling us that it’s time to turn over a new leaf, so to speak. He wants us to cast off outmoded ways of thinking and let go of unproductive ways of doing things.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell · 5 Comments

Go Ahead…Open It!

Image by yuyun fan from Pixabay

What traditions does your family have when it comes to Christmas gifts?

Do some of your family members like to give “prank” gifts?

This seems to be the specialty of a lot of Dads. Kids unwrap a gift from Dad to find an iPad box, and squeal with glee. When they open the box, however, they discover that inside are a bunch of eye pads! Thanks, Dad!

Or perhaps your family likes to disguise what the gift really is by wrapping it in a way that leaves you guessing. You might receive a large box, but when you unwrap it you find that it contains a series of increasingly smaller boxes. The last one contains the real gift, which might be a tiny box with jewellery inside.

In my family, we always open our gifts on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day itself. This tradition started when a certain little girl, who shall remain nameless, couldn’t wait until Christmas morning to see what “Santa” had brought her.

But no matter how a gift is wrapped or when it’s given, offering the gift is only half the equation.

It has to be received before the action is complete.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell · 3 Comments

More Than Meets The Eye

Image by kalhh from Pixabay

Sometimes we don’t realize what we’re looking at, do we?

This winter solstice is a good example of that, because tonight we’ll be able to see a particularly bright “star” in the night sky.

That is, you might assume it’s a star, but you’ll actually be seeing something quite different.

This rare “Christmas star” will actually be a planetary conjunction. The planets Jupiter and Saturn will be so closely aligned tonight that they will appear to be one ultra-bright object.

At other times, a bright “star” you see might actually be a binary star system; that is, two stars orbiting each other. Or it could be the planet Venus. You’d need to study it through a telescope, adjust your focus and consult an astronomical guide to know for sure.

The truth is, sometimes we don’t really understand what we’re seeing.

That was certainly true for many of the people who saw the baby Jesus and the star which heralded His birth.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Yes, Virginia, There Really Is A Jesus Christ!

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

If you still believe in Santa Claus, please avert your eyes from the screen right now.

I’ll wait.

For the rest of you, how old were you when you realized that there wasn’t really a Santa Claus?

Five or six? Nine or ten? Thirty?

For me, the realization came on bit by bit over the years when I was little.

First off, on the gift tags on my Christmas presents, I noticed that the “To Lori, Love Santa” inscription was written in handwriting that looked an awful lot like my Mom’s. In fact, exactly like hers. I realized that it was, in fact, my Mom’s handwriting, not Santa’s.

That was my first inkling that something was up with this whole Santa thing.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

No Matter Your Age, There’s a Miracle For You!

Stained glass window depicting Gabriel and Mary. Image by Dorothee Quennesson on Pixabay

When we think of the Christmas story, we often focus on the birth of Jesus as the only miraculous event that occurred.

And indeed it was an awesome miracle: the virgin birth of a baby who would become the Saviour of the world.

But there was another miraculous birth that happened around the same time, described only in the gospel of Luke.

The angel Gabriel told Mary she would conceive without having had relations with her betrothed, Joseph. The Holy Spirit would come upon her, and she would give birth to a son, who was to be called Jesus.

This was no doubt astounding news to Mary. But the angel didn’t stop there: he had another amazing news flash.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

His Footprints Are Still Here

Footprint on the Moon. Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

“The footprints are still there,” the article began.

Whose footprints? And where?

The article was talking about the footprints of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and the ten others who have walked on the moon.

Astonishingly, their footprints are still there. It’s been over 50 years since humans first walked on the lunar landscape, but the moon’s dusty surface is still marked with our historic bootprints.

How can this be?

After all, here on earth, footprints in the dirt can be washed away by rain days later. An imprint of a foot on a sandy beach might be erased in seconds by an incoming wave. Other people or vehicles can trample a footprint, cancelling it out.

But it’s different on the moon. The moon has no atmosphere, and therefore no breezes or rain to erode any footprints. Earth’s satellite also doesn’t get a lot of visitors, so no one else’s footprints or vehicle tracks have obscured those made half a century ago.

Scientists suggest that the lunar footprints of the astronauts might last a million years, maybe almost as long as the moon itself continues to exist.

That couldn’t happen here on earth. Or could it?

Are there footprints on earth that will last for millennia or eons, or even for eternity?

Yes.

The footprints of Jesus will.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Preparing a Place Just For You

Photo by Jill Wellington on Pixabay

If this were a normal Christmas, I imagine that many of us would be preparing to have guests over for the holidays.

We’d be spiffing up the house, decorating the Christmas tree, and getting the guest bedroom ready for overnight visitors.

We might also be planning the decorations for the dining table: choosing which candles and flowers to use, bringing out the best china, or making whimsical place cards.

It’s fun to prepare for guests, isn’t it? Selecting special touches that you know they’ll like, ensuring that they’ll be comfortable, even customizing things so that each guest feels cherished.

This year, however, COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into our Christmas plans. For many of us, preparing for guests is something that’s off the menu.

But did you know that there’s someone who’s still preparing a place for you, pandemic or not?

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Seeds of Your Comeback Are Already Forming

Magnolia Buds in Winter. Photo by Pitsch on Pixabay

It can be hard to hold on to hope when winter is coming, can’t it?

The trees and shrubs seem barren of any evidence that life will ever reemerge. It can be rather depressing.

But if you look closely at certain plants during winter, you’ll see something exciting:

Flower buds!

Yes, some plants, such as magnolias, actually set their flower buds for next year during the previous growing season. You can see these buds on the branches all winter long.

In the case of magnolias, the buds are encased in a hairy protective scale to insulate them from the cold, almost like a silvery fur coat. When the time is right the next spring, the flowers are all ready to burst open into glorious bloom.

Isn’t it encouraging to know that the promise of next year’s flowers is already there during the bleak winter?

In the same way, the seeds of your comeback are forming deep within you.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Don’t Spoil Your (Spiritual) Appetite

Photo by Free-Photos on Pixabay

When you were young, did your parents ever admonish you not to eat sweets too close to dinner time because it would “spoil your appetite”?

Mine certainly did. However, delaying dessert until after dinner is difficult to do.

The look of a beautifully frosted cake or the smell of freshly baked cookies can be notoriously tempting. And of course, one cookie or piece of cake invariably leads to another…

Before you know it, you’ve stuffed yourself with sugary foods and are too full to eat dinner. You miss out on all the good protein and vegetables in the main meal.

I guess Mom and Dad knew best: we should fill ourselves with more nourishing things first, and leave the dessert until afterward as a treat, not the main course.

The same lesson holds for us spiritually, doesn’t it?

We should concentrate on things of substance in our lives first.

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