From the Pastor's Pen

Pastor Sally’s Devotional 12/18

| December 18, 2020

Dear Friends,

There’s something wonderful about waiting for a baby.  My oldest son, Stephen, and his wife, Elizabeth, are awaiting their first child.  They are expecting a baby boy in early April.  I smile every time I think about them.  It is a little hard waiting for this baby given how far away we live from each other.  They live in Los Angeles!  I’m not even sure I’ll be able to fly out when the baby is born given the uncertainty with the virus.  I am determined to get there one way or another.

 

In the meantime I am smiling and buying teddy bears and sewing.  I haven’t sewn in ages except to make a few masks, but I am a sewer of old.  I sewed baby quilts for all three of my sons and I’m at it again.  You can see the beginnings of my work in this picture.  This is no doubt the most difficult project I have ever tackled.  I made the mistake of asking for input from my son and daughter-in-law.  Stephen came back with the idea that I could sew a picture out of the book Babar’s museum of art.  The picture Stephen wanted is Laurent De Brunhoff’s version of “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat.  All the people in the picture are drawn as elephants.  It’s a super fun picture to look at but very complicated as a quilt project!  I am making some modifications to make it possible.  You can see here I have the background finished.  I am now working on creating the people.  I get pretty frustrated from time to time as I try different techniques.  But I just keep remembering the little child who will hopefully love it.

 

We are all currently awaiting the anniversary of a special baby’s birth that happened 2000 years ago.  When he was born to Mary and Joseph, I imagine the preparations they were able to make were small.  I imagine Mary went through her scraps of cloth and ripped long strips in which to wrap her baby.  Perhaps she rolled them and tucked them in a sack to carry on the long journey to Bethlehem.  Beyond this simple task there was very little she would have been able to do.  There was no baby room to prepare, to clothes to stitch and no cradle to build.  Babies in peasant families were swaddled in strips of cloth and laid in mangers to sleep as was Jesus.  What I’m sure Mary and Joseph did was prepare their hearts to love this baby.  I’m sure they thought about the baby and prayed for the baby and rejoiced a child was coming.

 

I wonder what you are doing to prepare for the coming of the Christ child at Christmas.  I hope you think about him and pray to him and rejoice that you are blessed to love him more this year.

 

Peace,

Pr. Sally

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