Deeper Waters

On this day before Christmas, I’d like us to consider what really happened. I’m heading out soon to see family, so this will be brief. Let’s put ourselves in the position of someone the night before the original Christmas.

The Messiah had not entered the world.

The sacrifices were still being offered to make sure we were forgiven.

God had been silent for 400 years.

The world was ruled by an oppressive empire.

The Jews were in political turmoil with various parties not knowing how to respond to Rome.

The hope of Israel was being awaited.

A virgin girl was wondering just what was going on with her being pregnant.

The one she was betrothed to was looking for a place to keep her safe as she was about to give birth.

Inns were filled with people simply trying to make it back home for the census. (The original Christmas traffic!)

An elderly lady was caring for a newborn son named John.

A priest had had a son in his old age making the people wonder what was happening.

A man named Simeon was waiting in a temple for the redemption of Israel he had been promised to see.

The enemy was preparing to rile up the force of Herod soon to deal with the Messiah.

Angels were on stand-by to announce the good news.

Shepherd were in the field expecting another day.

All of this changed though. Within 24 hours, God himself came into the world in a way no one expected.

Today, enjoy yourself, but remember what came next was the real gift.

Tomorrow early afternoon, I will be heading back to spend Christmas with the folks. Blog readers! You can rest assured! I do plan on writing a Christmas Eve blog before I head out. However, tonight, I’d like to write about exactly what it means to me to say that I’m heading back.

Now I do keep some secrecy on here about my personal information, but I consider myself as one who has come from a small town and my family is certainly not wealthy. However, as I look around me, I am amazed. I have a nice computer and nearby me is a huge game collection. When I walk in my bedroom, there are several bookcases filled with books. I come from a poor family, but I consider myself in material possessions wealthy.

I fear sounding like I’m bragging, but I do believe that I have been blessed with an intellect. I have been told by people that I have a gift of writing and that I am skilled at debates. I am the biggest doubter of this that there is, but if the public says so, then who am I to disagree?

It makes me marvel being here at the Seminary and being known to professors and our great president as well. Lord. Why me? I’m just a simple guy from a small town. I do not see anything special about me. Why is it that you have blessed me with so many things that I do not deserve? Yet here I am.

This is the first time I’ll be driving a long way for Christmas and I’ve already told my mother to remember that I have a steel rod on my spine and please don’t tackle me when you see me. It’s been nearly three months for her but she has held up well. She’s reached a point at least where she’s not calling me every day.

I look forward to our big Christmas Eve gathering and having all the family gather around and just wanting to know about my move. This is my extended family as well with my grandmother, my aunt, my uncle, and my cousins in addition to my folks, my sister, and her brother-in-law.

We also go to a family that has been kind of like my mother’s adopted family for a long time. I suspect that I will receive a lot of questions as well. I also know though that someone last year received a copy of the Da Vinci Code so maybe I could get the gift of an interesting discussion.

I miss leaving my roommate behind, but I’m sure he’ll do fine without me. I realize when I write that that God has blessed me with so many friends. People seem to like me for some odd reason and it just blows my mind. Again, I really don’t see it. I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention this.

Many of you have been with me even before I started this blog. Some of you read it faithfully and even have it linked from your own websites and blogs. Then there are people like my college president and my old church back home. There’s of course, my current church.

So many of you are so kind to me and if I really took the time to take in all that you said, I’d really be a whole lot better, though I’d probably break down emotionally as I don’t think I deserve the kindness you have heaped on me. However, I greatly appreciate it. Sometimes, little things you do and say help keep me going.

I’ll publicly say to my roommate thank you for helping me out with so much. It’s really been an eye-opening experience to live with someone else like this other than family and it seems many times that adventure is just right around our door. Things have been odd at times, but in the end, I know you’ve always been there and I’m a better person today because you’re in my life. I pray for your blessing every night. You deserve it.

I fear if I keep going, I will never stop writing like this. It might not be a bad thing, but hey, I’ve got plans for the evening. I pray as I rest tonight that I’ll keep in mind everything. As I think about how I started with my material wealth and ended with talking about my friends, I have no doubt which is greater. My friends mean far more to me than anything else in this world. Of course, Christ is most important to me, but I am pleased he blessed me with so many people. So many times when you’re so kind I want to ask “Why?” but I think I know what you’d say. I’d probably deny it, but I know what you’d say.

Merry Christmas everyone. See you in the morning!

Before too long, many families will be gathered together and opening their Bibles and reading the Christmas story. We will hear of the dream of Joseph in response to Mary’s pregnancy in Matthew 1 and how the child will be called Immanuel. We will hear about the announcement to Mary in Luke 1. We will hear about the magi in Matthew 2 and the shepherds in Luke 2.

I wonder how many people will read the other Christmas story found in Revelation 12.

Yeah! That’s a Christmas account! It’s a bit abbreviated, but it’s an illustration of what was going on. The child is being born and Satan is already there trying to destroy him to prevent the plan of salvation from taking place. Fortunately, the child is protected and snatched up to Heaven. (John goes from birth to ascension.)

We see so much of the good side of what happened, but we need to realize that cosmic warfare was taking place. If this was a chess game, then this is the point where God is preparing to make a checkmate move. We can be sure that Satan knew it was coming and was ready to respond.

So what happens in the story? We see that Herod orders all the children in Bethlehem under two years old to be slain. Joseph and Mary have to flee in order to keep Jesus alive. By the way, if you wonder why no one else records this, this is sadly mild for Herod. He was prone to murdering rampages and the town was a small town, there would probably be a dozen or so children murdered. In the time of Herod, it was hardly breaking news.

Why’d Herod do it? He feared a new king coming and taking his place. Thus, while we look and see Christmas as a wonderful time of year, and don’t get me wrong for what happened was wonderful, it was hardly a pleasant memory for many of the people involved. The people of Bethlehem would probably not look back with fondness.

This needs to be remembered though. Christmas is a fun holiday, but it is also a serious holiday. It is the time that we remember that God did enter this world. The heavenly did come and intersect with the earthly. God made himself known in a way that he had never done before.

That doesn’t happen peacefully. In fact, when we are servants of God today, we can expect to have clashes as well. What happened at the start was the beginning of the end. If this move worked, which God knew it would as I am no open theist, then it would spell the end for Satan and his plans.

Indeed, it was the end. The dragon was cast down and he went to make war on those who obey God’s commandments, which would be us.  Today, we can expect that. If there were no Christmas, there would be no Christians. We would not be in the war most likely. We are doing what we do though because of what God did 2,000 years ago.

This Christmas, enjoy the celebration, but remember that this is cosmic warfare also. It’s also going on around you right now. (It could help us to recover a biblical idea of angels) Celebrate, but remember what all happened. It wasn’t just fun and games.

I’ve been thinking about the passage in Isaiah 6 some lately. You know it well I hope. If you don’t, it’s time to learn it. It’s where Isaiah has a vision where he sees the Lord high and exalted on the throne and the angels are there before him and they are singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Isaiah is just stunned and says that he is a man of unclean lips who lives among unclean people and he must die for he has seen YHWH, the Lord of hosts.

Let us consider this. These angels are before God and saying one thing about him. He is holy. How often do we see God that way? Do we look at the God of the Bible and think “He’s holy.” Even worse though, if we do think that, do we think that’s a good thing or a bad thing? Has holy become a word that implies something that we really don’t seem to want to have?

Have we ever had times when we’ve thought about Heaven and thought it boring? In all honesty, many times, I’ve wondered about that? Do we ever think about God and see him as someone static? Do we ever see reading the Bible as a duty we’re supposed to do that we do grudgingly? Do we do the same with prayer and tithing and other such practices?

When you think of God, do you really get excited? Have you reached the point where you read about the incarnation and your mind is thinking, “Yeah. God took on flesh. Jesus died and rose from the dead.” Are you getting excited at hearing Jesus died and rose from the dead, or are you just hearing it?

I fear most of us are answering in a way that shows we are not excited. I also fear because I am the same way. The supernatural no longer seems to strike us as wonderful. Christianity has not been good news often but has simply been news, and most of us know if we want to have a good time, we do not turn on the evening news.

And I think we need to repent of this.

We need to ask God to show us who he is. I’m not asking for a new revelation in this. I’m asking that we really understand the revelation that has been given to us. I’m asking that we try to see God as he really is. If we get a thought of God that he is boring for instance or static, we need to throw that thought out.

One way we’ll get to the truth of God is to throw out that which is not true. In fact, it’s good to do this with any belief. If you are saying something that is false, then throw it out, be it about God, yourself, or anything else. We have a tendency to repeat lies so much that we believe them, like the ones that I have been mentioning.

And what a shame that we have done this with God. The thought of the truth of Christianity should excite our souls greatly. We should delight to think about it. We could spend so much time diving into this mystery, but we don’t. I fear we have reached a time when the wonder of the gospel has died on us.

This is what we need, especially around Christmas. We should be celebrating one thing mainly. The incarnation. This is the time we remember that it happened, but are we filled with wonder at the thought? The angels are standing at the throne of God and singing about how holy he is. Dare we disagree?

We all know if we were there, we would be acknowledging that God is holy and awesome and wonderful. Why? Because that’s true and we could not deny it. Could we deny it now? Do we have any reason to believe that it isn’t true now? If no, then we need to start living like that’s true.

We need to see the God who is there.

I’d like to let you in on a secret. Most people tend to fall into two kinds of categories when they doubt. They are either emotional or volitional. Of these, the former is the far more common. The volitional often know at some area that it is true, but they just don’t care. They want to think otherwise. Rational doubters will be happy as soon as the question is answered. Emotional ones ask “What if” questions?

Be sure though. When these people come to you, they are not going to come out and say that they are emotional doubters or even volitional doubters. They are going to say that they are rational and they will give rational objections. To a degree, these should be answered, but these are largely smokescreens.

There are a number of people on here that I’ve seen that as soon as I see them say something my mind is going “Emotional, emotional, emotional, emotional” When someone comes and admits a personal hurt such as a way Christians have wronged them in the past, you are getting into emotional territory. When you raise a good argument and you get a “Yeah, but what if?”

This will happen to you also when you face the most dangerous critic of the faith you will ever face. That is yourself. When you wake up at night and start thinking “What if?” or when you can’t even get to sleep at night because you are thinking about those objections to the faith. This is when you need to get those emotions under control.

Yes. You can control them. It’s not easy. I still work on it. If you are not happy though, you are the reason you are not happy. Happiness is a choice. It’s a hard choice at times, but it’s still a choice. What you need to do at that time is to remind yourself of the facts and go with them.

These emotions can cause you to focus on the wrong things. Suppose someone comes with something like a supposed biblical contradiction. You have to ask yourself, “Does this outweigh the independent evidence for God’s existence and the fact that he has revealed himself in the person of Christ and raised Christ from the dead?” It’s good to review those arguments at that time and realize that there is most likely an answer to this one as well.

When dealing with the emotional doubter, try to get past the emotional aspect. If that means focusing on it for the time being, then focus on it. I love the rational debate side of course, but when the emotional side comes in, there is a soul at stake and it’s best to concentrate on winning that soul.

By the way, these kinds of things don’t go away overnight. I am a strong perfectionist and I will spend the rest of my life working on that. These tendencies will be there and you will have to keep controlling them. Be prepared for a long haul and don’t think a mountaintop experience means they’re never coming back.

And to my fellow men, I say this. We are at a huge disadvantage here. Most women who are emotional doubters know that they are. We men are very reluctant to admit that we are emotional doubters. We’re men after all! We’re not supposed to be like that. We should often though fess up and admit that we are emotional doubters.

Christians. Be prepared. This is the most common type of doubt you will find and the most common in yourself as well. Learn to control your emotions instead of them controlling you.

Last night, I wrote on the view of women in Christianity. After pondering such a thing, I decided to write about another great myth. This is the belief that Christianity taught that the Earth was flat. In fact, it is generally assumed that people until the Middle Ages did believe that the Earth was flat.

Sadly enough, Christians have bought into this atheistic fable.

The truth is, the ancients knew that the Earth was round. They’d known it for several years. At the apologetics conference recently, Dinesh D’Souza gave one of the best evidences that I’ve seen of this. His remark was that they saw eclipses and saw that there was a round shadow. Of course, he gave other evidences, but this was the most enjoyable one.

However, consider some quotes. Aristotle’s work “On The Heavens”:

All of which goes to show not only that the earth is circular in shape, but also that it is a sphere of no great size: for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be quickly apparent. Hence one should not be too sure of the incredibility of the view of those who conceive that there is continuity between the parts about the pillars of Hercules and the parts about India, and that in this way the ocean is one. As further evidence in favour of this they quote the case of elephants, a species occurring in each of these extreme regions, suggesting that the common characteristic of these extremes is explained by their continuity. Also, those mathematicians who try to calculate the size of the earth’s circumference arrive at the figure 400,000 stades. This indicates not only that the earth’s mass is spherical in shape, but also that as compared with the stars it is not of great size.

This is one of the first quotes I’d point to, but he was not really the first one. Aristotle was widely accepted throughout the Middle Ages and that includes the doctrine that the Earth is a sphere. You will not find many an educated person who doubts the sphericity of the Earth.

I would even say at this point that Christianity gave rise to a culture that would allow science to rise. They showed a belief in a reasonable God with a reasonable faith where reason could be used to understand a reasonable universe. Islam and Judaism tend to be religions about right living more than right beliefs. No doubt, there are some right beliefs that are to be held to be orthodox in each of these faiths, but Christianity is the one that emphasized the role of reason.

When did the idea of a flat Earth really become popular? It was in the 1800’s. Until then, it was just known that the ancients knew that the Earth was a sphere. Some secular writers though decided to rewrite history. (Friends. Be cautious of much said in history in relation to the view of Christianity. There are myths about such events as Galileo and the Inquisition that have been repeated so much that they’re believed to be true but no one can say why.)

I’m not the only one to say something like this. This is from a writer for the American Scientific Association also.

http://web.archive.org/web/20040717084200/http://www.id.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/RUSSELL/FlatEarth.html

And his last point is correct. This can be found to show a myth that Christianity and science have always been at odds. It really helps the evolutionary side in their case if this can be shown. This is why Christians need to learn to get rid of these myths and restore our heritage of science. We are the ones that were really doing it first.

Science is not the enemy of Christianity. Neither is reason. They all go together. All truth is indeed God’s truth and whatever is revealed about the natural order, we should embrace it. If it messes with our interpretation of Scripture, well maybe we need to change that. We cannot dare have it where Christianity teaches one thing and science one other thing. Of course, this is something that needs to be established. I have yet to see macroevolutionary theory established. If it was, it wouldn’t keep me up at night, but my reasons for not believing it are scientific and philosophical.

Be watchful though. Atheistic myths need to be brought down. We are often told that ancient people were gullible and would believe anything. The more I think about it though, the more I think that it is actually the reverse. It is modern people that believe anything and this over things they can find simply by doing a little bit of reading.

The myth of the Flat Earth. It’s one sign modern people are gullible.

I’d like to tie something in with a sermon I heard John MacArthur giving on the radio on Matthew 1. (I believe it was John MacArthur. It sure sounded like him.) He was speaking on the genealogies in Matthew and the birth of Christ and he mentioned the women that are found in there. Let’s look at them.

First off is Tamar. You know her story? It’s in Genesis 38. She tricked her father-in-law Judah into thinking she was a shrine prostitute and slept with him and bore two sons. One of those sons was Perez and the lineage of the Messiah passed through him. Hardly a lady of character.

Second is Rahab. If you remember the conquest of Jericho, you remember her. She was more of a lady of character as she was faithful to the God of Israel, but when she was found, she was a prostitute running a brothel. She converted though to follow the God of Israel and is included in the lineage of the Messiah.

Third is Ruth. Things are getting better now. This was a Moabitess who left her people behind to follow Naomi back to the land of Israel and embrace Naomi’s God as her God. Ruth is seen as a noble figure in the book and the book of Ruth ends by pointing out that king David came from the lineage of Ruth.

Fourth on the list is Bathsheba. Now we all know the story of David and Bathsheba. Ravi Zacharias once said that if you made a documentary of the Sermon on the Mount and played it one Sunday night, you would only get a few Christian viewers. If you made one of David and Bathsheba, everyone would be watching. It’s obvious why!

This was the girl that David got pregnant and then had her husband killed in order to explain the pregnancy and save his own hide. He later married her after he did this, but the Lord was not pleased. To her credit, Bathsheba is a heroic figure later on as she takes a stand and gets Solomon on the throne.

Last though is Mary. Mary is seen as the most blessed of all in that she gets to be the mother of the Messiah. Now I don’t hold Catholic doctrines in that Mary remained a virgin or that she was sinless, but I think every Protestant should affirm that Mary does deserve a place of honor.

Why am I saying this? Because it seems to be the view in Christianity that women are downplayed. The skeptical worldview does not take kindly to the treatment women get. However, women were elevated by Christianity. The OT law placed them in a higher position than existing laws of the time. Now we may say that their witness didn’t count in NT times, and that was true, which makes it astounding that women get to be the first witnesses of the resurrection and thus, the embarrassment criteria lends credibility to the account, but it is Christianity that made it so that wouldn’t always be so.

When Paul wrote that a husband was to love his wife as Christ loved the church which would mean dying for her, the listening audience would have been stunned. This was an extraordinary new concept. When we see that there is no male or female in Christ, we realize how far this has gone. (By the way, he’s not saying male and female don’t exist as we are in Christ now and male or female. He’s saying there’s no favoritism.)

When we look at church history, we see this played out. Pliny the Younger talks about Deaconesses in the church and Paul sent his letter to the Romans by Phoebe. Theodora, the wife of Justinian, was an empress and Bathilda, the wife of Clovis II was venerated as a saint and helped free the slaves long before the New World.

Now today in America, we believe in the equality of men and women. We mean by that that they are both fully human. We do not mean that men are women or that women are men.  Please note though that this idea we have of equality makes no sense apart from what we see in Scripture. We see it in Genesis 1:26-27 and we see it in Galatians 3 with Paul reaffirming that concept in Christ.

This year, when you celebrate Christmas, think of how much the world changed as a result of that baby coming. Christianity has been a huge blessing to the world. If you’re a female and you enjoy the liberties you have today, then thank Christ for them. It is through him that they have come.

I was in church Sunday during what we call our educational hour. Usually, the person who spoke speaks again and the audience gets to ask questions. At one point, the speaker was speaking on something, though what it was was not the focus of the blog tonight. I kept noticing he used two words and he used them as if they had different meanings. So I raised my hand.

I told him that I was hearing these two words to which he agreed. I then told him that he was using them as if they were different. He agreed to that also. I then asked if he could explain the distinction between the two for me. Now I know there’s no context for my readers in what words were used and how they were used, but I want to recommend this for people. When you listen to someone or read something someone has written, watch their words very closely.

This is especially important in an age of the cults. When the Mormons come to you and say they believe in the deity of Christ, it does not mean what you think it means. Even JWs will tell you they believe in it, but they do not mean what you think it means either. JWs would say Jesus is a god so he is deity and Mormons have a Christ who is the brother of Satan. Neither of these are orthodox.

The homosexual left is out in full force often today and we have people saying gay instead of saying homosexual. Friends. Don’t say gay or queer or any other term. Say homosexual. This is an effort of rephrasing things to make them more friendly to the public. What a shock that the next word to be redefined on their list is marriage.

This is also in the abortion debate. What does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to be a person? What does it mean to be a life? What does it mean to be innocent? All of these terms have to be watched closely. The other side will jump at any slip that they can find in you.

The same goes with creation/evolution. What exactly do we mean by each of these words? What does it mean to say something is scientific? What is science? What is truth? People must be asked what they mean. Don’t accept a dictionary definition either. We often say words without having the dictionary definition in mind. Ask them to say exactly what they mean by the word.

This is going to be quite prevalent in our postmodern generation with the emerging church coming. What does the word “Truth” mean? Is X true for everyone, or is it true for you but not for me? What about tolerance? Does tolerance mean that I welcome the practicing homosexual into our midst? Does it mean I cannot disagree?

Friends. Our words are essential. We have to watch them closely. When you hear someone speak and they want to talk about something, ask yourself what they mean by that word. Have they said what it is yet? Be willing to ask questions and be willing to insist on distinctions. Make your own language clear as well. The gospel needs to be said with clarity after all.

A friend of mine took a risk today. Unfortunately, he did not win out on the risk. However, I am quite pleased with him. My friend is not normally one to act in such a way, but with encouragement, he got up the guts to go ahead and do it. Sure, he lost what he was going after, but he was willing to try.

My friend realized something and it’s something I need to realize more often also. Life is an adventure. There are rarely times where we know what will happen with certainty. We have to go out and take a chance. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, is certainly a true maxim to keep in mind.

Consider any adventure story? Does the hero know he will leave the fight alive? Not usually, unless he’s really skilled and fighting a weak opponent. Do not the heroes often take the most desperate drives and rush into the most dangerous odds in an attempt to get at that one sliver of hope? Yep.

Friends. Life is not to be played safe. Where would we be today if the church played it safe? In fact, maybe the reason we are in this situation in America is that the American church plays it safe. The disciples knew nothing about playing it safe. Go read Hebrews 11 and get to the end and read about what they were willing to go through.

We need leaders today. We need leaders that will stand up and face the world and say “Your system needs to change!” We need people who will stand up in the public square when Christ is maligned and say “That is my Lord you are speaking about!” We need to learn from the JWs and Mormons. They are highly evangelistic with a lie. We have the truth and don’t have half the evangelism they have.

My friend is a model for all of us now. Now are you going to speak up at times and get laughed at and shamed? Yes. Deal with it. Are you going to take chances at times and lose out? Yep. Deal with it. Are you going to enter into a debate and get stumped with a hard question and not know an answer? Deal with it and read up and learn an answer.

J.P. Moreland once said that when you start apologetics, what will happen is that as you start, you’ll go out from time to time and get your tail feathers blown out from under you. I am sure he speaks from experience. So do I. This happened to me numerous times when I started. Arguments that in the past made me cringe and be fearful today do not even make me blink.

Why? Because I kept taking risks. I’ve been in a number of debates now. I still get nervous before many of them, but each time, they get easier and easier. It’s a risk. I know I’m putting my reputation on the line and worse, the way some people might see Christianity. If I am seen as a champion of the faith and I fail, what might some people think about the faith?

Friends. We have to risk though. There’s no excuse to not do so. We are on an adventure and we need to live it like an adventure. We can cross the finish line in Heaven without taking a lot of risks I believe, but I think we will be at the loss for it. Why not try to cross that line as if we were truly racing for that crown Paul talks about in 1 Cor. 9? Would you not give it your all instead of just walking across? I think you would.

Friend. I’m proud of you. You took a risk. May we all learn from your example!

I had a pretty hectic evening I’d say. My workplace was rushed and I had somewhat of a headache, (still do actually) and my feet felt like they would fall off. I came home tonight though and started chatting with my roommate and before too long we’re off doing some internet activity on a forum together.

I think more and more about the joy of my friends. I look at where I am at in the world and in my life now and realize that while I did take the prerogative to do what I am doing, that I would not have done it and would not be able to keep doing it if it wasn’t for the support of my friends.

I am incredibly thankful for these people that God has allowed to put in my life. As my roommate and I laugh back and forth concerning an incident tonight, I think back to that one day he contacted me with a simple message. From there began a long friendship which has come to this point. If it wasn’t for the friendship of others though, I wouldn’t have met this friend I have today either.

These people are people we just tend to take for granted sometimes. I recall the definition of a friend as one who knows everything there is to know about you, but likes you anyway. I am a character with many strange idiosyncracies, yet my friends like me and support me anyway and it just blows me away.

I often hope I can do the same for them. When my friends are attacked, it is one thing that will thoroughly make me angry. They can go after me all they want to, but when someone goes after my friends, then that is an act of war. I fight on the side of my friends. They stand with me and I with them.

Each of us has been there. We’ve seen good times and we’ve seen bad times. My friends have seen me when I’ve been happy and they’ve seen me when I’ve been sad. They’ve seen me when I thought I could handle any opponent and they’ve seen me when I thought I couldn’t handle anyone.

If I need an ear to talk to, there are several people I know I can turn to. My cell phone is filled with contacts. I can pick it up and call them and if it is an emergency, I know that they would be there for me. There’s a great joy in going down that list and seeing friend after friend after friend.

I am not an emotional person, but as I write this, I do get emotional. It’s hard not to, and I think it’s a good thing that I do. When I’m depressed nowadays, I think about my friends and how much they mean to me. When I am scared about the future, which sometimes happens, I think about them and realize they will be there.

I even think about my old church. As I write this, someone from back there is in IM with me wanting to talk about how it is doing and they are finally teaching apologetics. That pleases me greatly. My church was generous enough that they took a love offering for me to go to Seminary which has paid for my first course. I’m a member of a church here now, but they still email me about things that are going on. I’m still treated like a member.

We near the holiday season now. I look forward to seeing my family, but I still must say “Thank God for Friends!”