The Peace of Advent is Jesus!

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It has been nearly a month since I have updated my blog and I greatly appreciate your patience.  I still have lots of thoughts to share with you, I just haven't done so!  My apologies.

Advent, the season we are in, is such a beautiful time in the Church year, I didn't want to let it slip by without writing. 

The challenging thing about Advent (the four weeks leading up to the celebration of the birth of Christ--Christmas) is that it falls right smack in the middle of one of the busiest shopping seasons of the year!  

So many distractions!

Truth be told, the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy rose up around the misguided notion that Christmas is all about gift-giving.  The bigger the better.  The more, the more amazing.  The perfect gift, the greatest show of our love for another.

None of that is true.  I have never found the perfect gift that expresses the totality of my love.  My guess is you won't either, unless you look to Christ himself.  Jesus is the bigger, more amazing, perfect gift of love, given in the humble, helpless infant in a manger in Bethlehem.

We cannot out-do God and we never will.  I'm not against gift-giving--don't get me wrong--but we would be wise to lighten up a bit and focus on the coming of Jesus, for without him, none of what we do matters.

Stop. Relax. Enjoy Advent.  Prepare your heart for the Lord, who levels mountains and fills valleys just so we can easily go down the path toward him.  It is in Jesus that you will find the peace you long for!

Janet Cassidy
janetcassidy.blogspot.com

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