Our Part in the Story by Jim Hart

Note: This blog post has been re-purposed from last year. But now that Thanksgiving has given way to Black Friday, I thought it would ok, and appropriate, to share these thoughts again as we transition full-blast into the Christmas Season.

There aren’t many stories that are more powerful, more repeated, and more wonderful than the story of Christmas. As a musician, I’m in awe of the number of songs that this single story has generated for centuries. One of my favorite Christmas carols over the past couple of years has been “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen”. For a song that had its beginnings in 15^th century Europe, it has found new meaning for me.

It’s the line “let nothing you dismay” that really gets my attention. Because it’s easy to be dismayed this time of year. The demands on our time to shop, decorate the house, and make it to an endless number of parties; the materialism; and the oft reported ‘war on Christmas’. All of this can overshadow the actual Christmas story, which is, as the song tells us, “for Jesus Christ our Savior was born upon this day”. The truth of that one line fulfilled dozens of prophecies in God’s great Story.

So I’ve made it my purpose this year not to let myself become dismayed and distracted from that real story of Christmas. Yup, my head is in the sand until December 26.

The Christmas story is the model for story telling - there’s danger, loneliness, mystery, intrigue, love, surprises, disappointment, a journey, the birth of a king, and joy. Great joy. I want to focus on the Story of Christmas, not the season of Christmas, if that makes sense. Because the deeper, true meaning of the Story is uncovered when we sing “to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray”. And now the Christmas story contains more miracles, more heartache, more treachery, more admonishment to seek the king’s true kingdom, more mercy, more grace, more humility, more joy, more Jesus. And we have been invited to be active participants in this Story.

An even older text, Ephesians 6:12, reminds us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” The war on Christmas is not really waged in courtrooms, boardrooms, and on cable TV news. The war front is our mind and it’s a battle for the heart.

But a good story, a true story, can stir in our heart, provoke emotions and direct our beliefs like few other forces can. Stories are a direct line to the heart.

This Christmas, don't let the controversies alarm you, and the fast-pace distract you, from the Story. Don't fixate on whether or not your cashier at the grocery store is allowed to say "merry Christmas".  It doesn't stop you from saying “merry Christmas”. And don't waste energy fretting about the towns that may or may not be allowed to put baby Jesus on public or government land. Jesus tell us in John 15:18 that “if the word hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.”

So now, the loudest part of the song for me comes when singing “to save us all from Satan’s power”. Because I know that somewhere else in the Story (1 John 3:8) it says “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” Can I get an ‘amen’!

So what’s your part in telling, and re-telling, this Story? For those of us who continue to wrestle, who have had the Christ child touch, and enter, our heart; who serve the King with all of our heart, mind and strength; and who long to tell His Story – we begin by singing out loud “Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and Joy! Oh tidings of comfort and joy!”

That’s our part in the Story.

Christmas Greetings from Joyce Hart and Jim Hart

Merry Christmas!  Are you taking it easy until January or are you writing like crazy to meet a deadline?  Or do those characters in your head demand that you write their story?  I’m always amazed at novelists when they tell me things like “my character wouldn’t let me go this direction with the story.” 

I marvel when an author tells me they couldn’t sleep because they had a story that had to be written.  All of you writers are amazing and it’s such a great joy to work with every one of you who are our clients.

I hope you got your cookies baked, the house decorated, groceries bought and packages wrapped.  Such a busy time.  If you are like me it’s hard to get away from the computer, but I must forget it for a few days, especially on Christmas day.  I have other important things to do, like cook for my family & friends and get those packages wrapped, hoping that I didn’t forget anything.

I love to go to church on Christmas Eve, such a special time to gather with friends and Worship the King of Kings and thank Him for being willing to come to this Earth as a babe and then 33 years later to die a horrible death on the cross for my sins.  What a Savior!  I love Christmas carols – singing about “Christ the King, the newborn King.”   It is so amazing to me to look at all the Old Testament scriptures that clearly portrayed His coming and yet His Disciples didn’t fully understand.  And some people today do not fully understand that he is indeed the King of Kings, Prince of Peace.

Thank you precious Savior for being our King of Kings. Lord of Glory.  My husband always reads Luke 2 with our family before we open our presents and gather for dinner.

I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a happy & prosperous New Year serving our Lord Jesus Christ.  I pray your dreams and goals become a reality. 

In His service,

Joyce Hart, Hartline Literary Agency. 

One of my favorite Christmas hymns is “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.  These four simple lines from Charles Wesley masterfully capture the significance and purpose of Christ’s birth:

            Mild He lays His glory by,
            Born that man no more may die.
            Born to raise the sons of earth,
            Born to give them second birth.

I hope that you’ve had time this Christmas season to pause and reflect on the significance of Christ’s birth. Jesus came to be born at the exact moment in history that God the Father had planned. Jesus grew from a boy to a man, and He also grew close relationships with those that He loved. And that’s still His plan today – to be in relationship with those that He loves – and that’s you, me and every person who ever walked this earth.

Merry Christmas!

Jim Hart

Hope you had a great Christmas by Terry Burns

This is one of my favorite Christmas pictures. One of the last we had with mom before she passed on. She was very much on my mind this time of year. We miss her.

Christmas always brings a mixture of memories and feelings for me. A number of years ago some of us were watching a Statler Brothers Christmas program and the question was posed to them as to what the best and worst Christmas was that they had ever experienced.

Someone said that was unrealistic because who would know the answer to that question?

I did know the answer.

My worst Christmas was when I lost my only sibling, my brother Trent at Christmas time only a few months after my father had passed on. I had to fight my way home that year on highways that were closed because of snow. When the highway patrol flagged me down and said I couldn't go I asked if they were making me stop? They said they couldn't do that but I told them there was no way I was going to let mom be alone on her first Christmas without dad. I made it but it was tough, then to get the news about Trent on top of that? Wasn't much Christmas cheer that year.

The best one? Just as easy. I got the chance to sit in a candlelight Christmas Eve service at the First Baptist Church in Orange, Texas, and watch both of my kids get get baptized. I can still smell the pine garlands in the windows heated by the candles and giving off a smell I still associate with Christmas. The congregation was all holding candles as well and the tears in my eyes made pinpoints of all of those delicate lights to give the scene a magical appearance. That was many, many years ago and I can still call it to mind as if it only happened yesterday.

Perhaps everyone has a best and worst, I do know that sometimes it can be a difficult time of year. If you have a 'worst' I really hope you had a faith base where the comforter was there for you to see you through it as mother and I had. And I know you had a 'best' and in all honesty I hope you've had so many that it is hard to decide which one.

As for this year? I hope you had a happy and joyous celebration of the birth of our Lord.

Colonial Christmas Dessert Recipes by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Christmas is a time for tradition. Since I write historical Christian fiction, I'm always looking for Christmas traditions that I can include in my stories or share with my family, but have real historical value. I wanted to share a couple of colonial Christmas dessert recipes I came across. Merry Christmas!


 
Hasty Pudding

Exact amounts were not given in my booklet so you you might have to experiment. Bring a container of water and some salt to a boil in a heavy saucepan. Slowly pour in some yellow cornmeal, stirring all the while til the mix becomes thick enough so a spoon will stand up in it. Laddle the pudding into 3-4 small bowls. Drop some butter onto each portion, then sprinkle on ground nutmeg and some molasses. Serve hot.


Buttered Bakes Apples

Peel and core the apples, leaving them whole. Carefully butter a heavily-tinned plate and arrange the apples on it. Fill the holes left by the cores with powdered sugar, and sprinkle the apples with melted butter, then bake twenty minutes. Put a small amount of current jelly in each of the cores. 

Bittersweet by Linda S. Glaz

Well, I’ve just read, for at least the hundredth time, the Christmas stories from the Little House series. My heart melts each year as I read about the sacrifice of family from this delightful Ingalls clan. They had so little, but were all about their family.

Another tearjerker was a very old episode of Fury. Ask any baby boomer if you don’t know what this fifties series is about. In this particular one, Joey befriends two little boys who are very poor, and at Christmas, they exchange the same gifts they had the last few years, crayons and I think, a pocketknife. But each year, they exchange them again. It’s a great lesson for children about being grateful in all circumstances for what you have.

Most of my favorite book/shows are from the forties through the sixties. Each had a lesson, and each one was based on a strong story, not a bunch of cheap holiday laughs with sex at the center of the joke. Okay, okay, I’m really old-fashioned(as well as really old), and Christmas brings this out in me, but it also brings out the longing for family to be together.

I have one kiddo who lives close to home, but the other two are thousands of miles away. So Christmas, while my favorite time of year, holds bittersweet nostalgia as well as looking to the holidays’ joys and to the future.

As the days of eggnog and Christmas stockings approach, I read my favorites, watch my old standbys and on occasion, am known to shed a tear or twenty.

Take this opportunity to read or share some of your most cherished memories with those you love. What is your favorite book/show from your childhood?