“3I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
7It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.” Philippians 1:3-11
This season is one of love, joy, and thankfulness in my family. We come together every Advent season to celebrate various holidays with one another. Since my sister and I are now in college, we don’t get to go home very often. So when we get to come home for the winter break, we are always so excited to spend time with our loved ones that we dearly miss while we’re away.
Every Christmas Eve for five years now, we have held dinner at our house for my mother’s side of the family. Mom is always very stressed and running around frantically in the kitchen, just wanting to make everything perfect for when the whole family arrives. My mother is a wonderful woman in the fact that she is so thoughtful and caring. So, my sister and I are always trying to calm her down and help her in any way we can. We tell her that no matter what, everything will turn out fine, and the real reason we’re all coming together is to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.
So, when the family arrives, we all are eating and are merry and reminiscing about Christmases past. It is a wonderful and hilarious time in the Fisher household. Having all the decorations that Mom, Josie, and I put up together, and the Nativity scene assembled on our living room table beside the Christmas tree create an intimate scene for the family to be immersed in. But, my favorite time of the night is when we all leave the house and go to the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at my hometown church, Trinity United Methodist. We each get a candle as we come through the door and the lights are dimmed when we are seated. A certain family will go up and light the Advent candle at the beginning of the service. Every year, the pastor’s son (who is a very talented singer, might I add) performs an a cappella version of “O Holy Night.” It is my favorite part of the entire service because I get to listen to someone tell the story of the night we are worshipping through the beauty of music. The son performs this every year because it is all our pastor, Rev. Jim Kelly, wants as a gift from him for Christmas. After that, the pastor preaches the story of Christ’s birth. The last hymn is always “Silent Night”, and each time any phrase or word related to “Jesus” comes up, we raise our candles in celebration of him. It is always such a touching and beautiful service and I’m so grateful to attend it every Christmas Eve with my family.
Christmas is such a wonderful holiday for my family to be together and worship. I’m so blessed to have such a loving and caring family to come home to every winter break, and I thank God for that every single day. Being with my loved ones to celebrate Christ’s birth is a true gift in my life. I love them all so much and I will never take the time I have with them for granted. I pray that I have many more wonderful Christmases to come spent worshipping with my family.
Brooke Fisher
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