My guest today is Joy Forney, author of Grace Full Mama. I have been so blessed by Joy's love for the Lord, and her deliberate purpose to glorify him through her blog and through her family's witness abroad...
Joy is the wife to a missionary pilot and they, along with their five kids, live in Indonesia. She is an undeserving recipient of amazing grace, and grateful daughter of God. Joy’s heart is to encourage women to revel in their job as mommy and wife, and to see it as good and needed work.
She shares her heart and life of being a mom with readers at her site, Grace Full Mama.
In our home, advent is a simple, special event that we look forward to all year long.
Each night during advent we light a candle, enjoy the light from the Christmas tree, and open a new door along with previously opened doors in our Advent Book.
Each day has a beautiful door for kids to open, revealing more of the story of Christ's birth (word for word from the Bible). Since every day you begin at the beginning and continue until you open the new door, by Christmas Day the kids have all of Luke 2 memorized!
In addition to The Advent Book we use a simple felt calendar. Each day has a clay ornament that represents a Scripture that we read together, discuss, and then place the ornament on the tree. Especially for our younger ones, this is a great way for them to see visually the whole story of the Messiah that came to save them from their sins.
Last night’s Scripture was John 1:29, which says,
“The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” And the ornament was a cute little lamb, and the kids listened intently as my husband explained about sacrifices in the Old Testament and how Jesus came to do away with it forever.
Since we live in Indonesia, we have the rich blessing of missing all of the commercialization that comes with Christmas in the States. I am so grateful that Christmas here is exactly what we make of it, and it is all focused on the precious baby Jesus and His amazing birth that saved us all from our desperate state.
Instead of focusing on what we get or want, we focus on giving His love away. We invite all of our friends and neighbors in to our home to enjoy an “American” meal. Last year it was spaghetti, and it was a big hit. We don’t have any agenda other than to joyfully share with others what we have been given.
At first it was difficult for me to give up my “usual” American traditions, but now I find that I am far more blessed by doing things a new and different way, and others are blessed as well.
I hope that you are blessed this Christmas season as well!!
