Peace for Christmas

Peace plaque designed by Rev. Shawn Cartwright, Northside Christian Church

By Carrie Fancett Pagels
Wouldn't that be wonderful if we could have Peace in every heart this Christmas? My pastor, Rev. Larry Jones preached on Peace this past Sunday and he inspired me to write this post. Rev. Shawn Cartwright, our music minister, created that beautiful plaque, pictured above (the coloring is a little off in this image) for Northside Christian Church. I have permission to share the image. In the background are our Advent candles which have been lit every Sunday leading up to Christmas.

In one of my Facebook groups, someone asked "What is something you can't buy for Christmas but would be wonderful?" and I replied "Peace." Peace is such a wonderful gift from God, via His Holy Spirit. When we've experienced it after all else fails in our human attempts to achieve peace, then we know how His wonderful supernatural peace is so amazing and a fabulous gift to us.

This Christmas, as much as is possible, I wish you the gift of human peace and I ask all of us to remember that heavenly Holy Spirit peace is something God can give us when the human efforts fail. And we can count on that.

Noela Nancarrow's Testimony

SALVATION & THE FAMILY TREE

The raised voices became roars. The arguing, like an aggravating itch. Suddenly, I had an urge to escape from it. It wasn't like my dad’s raging temper, physical abuse, or the loud family disagreements were uncommon. It was almost a daily occurrence. I loathed that middle kitchen cupboard where my dad kept a belt strap sitting atop a pile of newspapers, there for his easy access. I hated the big red welts that would still be there on my legs for school the next day. And I detested the fear my siblings and I lived in due to his temper. This particular evening however, I found myself retreating to my bedroom seeking calm, quietness, and blessed solitude. But I wasn't expecting this overwhelming shroud of peace to saturate me as soon as I stepped inside my room. I left the light off, not willing to disturb this incredible, palpable peace. Then as I lay down on my bed, not understanding but soaking it up nevertheless, the noise seemed to all but disappear from outside my room. Glancing toward the foot of my bed I then saw a man appear, completely in white, and as He stood there looking at me, I knew without a shadow of a doubt it was Jesus. My family and I weren’t Christians and the only religious experience I had had was limited Sunday-School when I was very young. At the time of this vision, I was 13. A barely-there teenager with a very ungodly world ahead of me. But the Prince of Peace had visited me that night, and He was keeping a close eye on me. And you know what? He is there, near to us all. We just have to reach out to Him and allow Him in.

~~~

God gave each of us a free will however, and as the years went by with no godly influences in my life, I listened to what the ‘world’ said was ‘normal’ and supposedly ‘right’. I remember feeling like there was something wrong with me if I didn’t hurry up and sleep with a guy or that you couldn’t have fun without drinking plenty of alcohol. I know now, they were all lies. How different and worse off my life could have been, but for God’s grace. He finally snared my attention through showing me what love was like in a family that knew Him. This family laughed and hugged and laughed some more, and one beautiful woman that’s now rejoicing in Heaven, played her guitar and sang with the voice of an angel. And just in case that wasn’t enough, when the television was later turned on, a documentary visualizing people’s after-life experiences of hell happened to be on. The part I saw stunned me, causing me to realize ‘there really IS a hell’. When this beautiful friend drove me home that night, she shared with me the Bible verses of Romans 10:9,10: ‘because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.’ All of a sudden, I couldn’t wait to arrive home and as soon as I entered my room, my knees found the floor. I have never looked back. And why would I? To know God is to love Him. To love Him is abundant life, love, and happiness like you’ve never known. 

~~~

My dad is no longer with us, and I miss him so much. Forgiveness came easy to me for him. I was able to understand that he was a little slow of mind, and that he didn't have God or the ability in himself to even try to change his behavior.  My parents didn't drink alcohol thankfully, or things might have been much worse, and for that I am very grateful. But my dysfunctional childhood had without my realization, left an imprint on my character. After getting married when I was 20, I had my first child at 23 and completed our little family with 3 children by the time I was 32. I had begun changing the course of generations past by becoming a Christian and raising my children in a Christ-centered home. Having the wisdom of God available, which by the way is far superior to any man no matter how esteemed he is, I could only grow in wisdom and knowledge. It’s a journey that goes on for our lifetime, with our coach running alongside of us. Along the way God showed me I didn't need to yell at my children, I didn't need to be so angry, and I didn't need to worry so much. And so with me, and my husband, we broke the chains of our family’s legacies with God's help. We’re not perfect, but we’ve made a change for the better. Best of all, we’ve given our children the opportunity to know the Lord. And that is the most priceless gift you could ever give. I jotted down something my son wrote when he was 12 that I imagine every parent would love to hear. He said, “I feel like Peter Pan, because I don’t want to grow up. I’ve had a really happy childhood.” I couldn’t say that as a child, but I can rejoice now that Christ has brought new life to our family tree. If you have had or have a dysfunctional family, allow Jesus to restore all that’s broken and bring new life to your family tree also. God bless!

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Melanie Dickerson Shares about Finding Peace and Joy Despite Circumstances

Melanie Dickerson

When Carrie first asked me to write about a struggle I’ve had, I wasn’t sure what I would write about. But then, soon after, I had an epiphany.

Pretty much all my life I have struggled with the fact that God said we Christians are supposed to “be glad and rejoice,” and to have joy and peace. That sounded good to me. I was all for joy and peace. But somehow joy and peace always eluded me. I didn’t have a particularly joyful personality, it seemed, and that was something I didn’t like about myself. And since I had the power to change myself, through Jesus, I prayed for that to change.

I prayed for joy. I prayed a lot. But still I didn’t change. I was still the slightly cynical person I always was. I worked on becoming more positive, and I did learn to be much more positive. Now I deliberately look on the bright side of things—not always, but most of the time. I put forth the effort to be more positive, and God helps me.

Still, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t, essentially, changed. I had not become a happy person who never got depressed or down about my circumstances. In fact, I had become really frustrated. It seemed my circumstances completely ruled my mood. If things were not going well, I felt sad. If things were going better, I was relatively happy. But I didn’t like being ruled by my circumstances. There was always something not going well, it seemed. I was a Christian. I wasn’t supposed to be ruled by my circumstances. I was supposed to be able to rise above them. But how? Why couldn’t I be one of those people who was happy all the time, no matter what? Why wasn’t God changing me and making me joyful? I’d tried really hard to become joyful. I’d prayed really hard for it. I’d believed that joy was my destiny as a Christian. Why didn’t I feel joy?

Then one day I was reading my Bible and it hit me. I’d been striving to LEARN to be joyful and to be at peace, but I didn’t FEEL joyful or peaceful. But the Bible said joy and peace were fruits of the Holy Spirit. Does a pear tree have to LEARN to bear pears? Does it have to put forth a lot of effort to produce pears? No. It’s the nature of a pear tree to bear pears. It has pears INSIDE IT, so to speak, and the pears just naturally come forth. Why wouldn’t it be the same with joy and peace? If joy and peace are fruits of the Holy Spirit, and I have the Holy Spirit inside me, then I HAVE joy and peace. I don’t have to learn or strive for joy and peace. They are there, inside me.

This may seem simple and obvious to you, but to me, it was a breakthrough. I also realized that I don’t have to change my personality to feel joy and peace. God makes us all with different personalities and characteristics. I may be a rather melancholy person by nature, but God gives me joy and peace. I’m not a wildly happy person all the time, a Pollyanna who never gets down, but God does give me joy and peace in a very real way. I am who I am, personality-wise, and I can accept myself the way I am. I was able to learn to be more positive and to trust God more. But joy and peace are my heritage, a deposit that comes with having the Holy Spirit living in me, a blessing that came when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and He came and made His home in me. I am in Christ and He is in me. Joy. Peace.

One thing that brings about joy and peace, is remembering my salvation. Psalm 51:12 says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
There is joy in knowing I am saved and will be with God in heaven, that all my sins are forgiven, and that I am right with God and He sees me as righteous. Wow. And I can have peace because God is always with me. He never leaves me. He never forsakes me. I have God’s Holy Spirit inside me. Therefore, I have peace. It is a fruit of God’s Spirit. I can’t explain it, but just dwelling on that gives me peace in a way that I had seldom felt peace before.

This newfound joy and peace was tested recently when, on Halloween night, my purse was stolen out of my van in the church parking lot while I was inside playing games with the neighborhood children. It’s an outreach our church does every year. To get my purse stolen was a nightmare, the very kind of unsettling, time-stealing, aggravating thing that I hate. I hate calling any sort of customer service to get something straightened out. And a week and a half later, I am still having to call customer service lines to get things straightened out. I had to get my driver’s license replaced, cancel my bank account and set up a new one, change my credit card on PayPal and every online store I regularly shop at, not to mention call all the customer service people at all the places that automatically charge my credit card every month—like my website host.

But, through this very frustrating circumstance, I survived. Most of the things I had to do were not as difficult as I’d thought they’d be. I was able to cancel my credit card and debit card before the thief was able to use the credit card more than once. But it still wasted a lot of my time and caused me a lot of aggravation.

A day and a half after it was stolen, I had to drive two hours to an event I had agreed to do months earlier. It was a beautiful morning, and I was thinking about my purse getting stolen, and the fact was, I felt enormous peace and joy. The sky was beautiful that morning. I was alone with my thoughts and God, and I realized that that thief had stolen very little from me, and certainly nothing of great value, because the only thing that really matters is my salvation and relationship with God. And that thief could never steal that from me.

Hebrews 12:26-27 says: At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”  The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

My salvation, and my status of being “in Christ Jesus” and having the Holy Spirit living inside me, cannot be shaken. No matter what my circumstances are, no matter what the devil tries to steal, kill, and destroy, I will not be shaken, my salvation will not be stolen, and I will always have the fruit of the Spirit inside me, including peace and joy.

The Captive Maiden by Melanie Dickerson

Bio:

Melanie Dickerson has just published her fourth book with Zondervan - The Captive Maiden. She is also author of The Fairest Beauty – Snow White retelling, The Merchant’s Daughter – Carol Award winner and Christy Award finalist, The Healer’s Apprentice – Christy Award finalist and winner of the National Readers Choice Award for Best First Book.

You can connect with Melanie on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelanieDickersonBooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/melanieauthor

Buy links:

Amazon: Click here

Christianbook.com: Click here

Barnes & Noble: Click here

GIVEAWAY: A paperback copy of The Captive Maiden will be given away to one blessed commenter so be sure and leave a comment on all the posts this week!