Dear (NAME),
“To grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”—Isaiah 61: 3
A faint spirit, the oil of mourning, the ashes of grief—God promises to deliver us from these. What a blessing it is to serve a God who turns the sorrow of grief into a time of praise!
Dear (INSERT NAME),
As you stroll through the local stores, you’ll see an abundance of bunnies, baskets, and candy for sale, and those may be the only signs of Easter you’ll find outside of church. Unlike its Christmas counterpart, Easter is mostly uncommercialized, which is pretty remarkable: the day that we celebrate the glory of Christ’s resurrection remains untainted by retailers.
However, just because we’re not receiving Easter ad upon Easter ad in our newspapers and inboxes doesn’t mean we should pigeonhole the holiday as a minor celebration. Easter is perhaps the most crucial holiday on the Christian calendar—even the word crucial has its roots in Christianity, stemming from the term for crucify.
(Editor's Note: This letter is from 2021, directly following the Pandemic year of 2020. It can still be easily modified to work for a different year because God is STILL on the throne!)
Warm Greetings!
As we embark upon a New Year, once again, we find that we are still dealing with this Pandemic in (COUNTRY). But, as you know, the entire world is going through much of the same.
I don't know about you, but perhaps there was a sense of hope last year at this time that as we turned the page on 2020, this would all be behind us within a few months. But that's not the case despite man's best efforts of masks, vaccines, and mandates!
While humanity can only do what we can in our strength, I want to remind you today that God is still on the Throne regardless of where we have been or where we are going!
Greetings in Christ!
One of the most popular Christmas movies is entitled: “It's a Wonderful Life.”
In this movie, George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, became quite unhappy with his life through challenging events he encountered. While he had hopes and dreams of his own, due to the death of his Father, he felt “stuck” in his hometown as he took leadership of the Savings and Loan, soon to be defunct.
As it appeared that everything had been lost due to the wrong actions of “Mr. Potter,” he was moved to the edge of despair. He wondered aloud whether the town and world would have been better off if he had not been born.
I won't share any more of the story with you in case you haven't seen the movie, but I would highly recommend it for anyone to view who may need a reminder of the value of their life!
Warm Greetings!
As we once again come upon “the most wonderful time of the year”, I wanted to take this opportunity to share some words of encouragement with our church family.
This year, we are confronted with the real possibility that some of the gifts our children or grandchildren want may be on a ship off the coast of California! There seems to be an interruption in the supply chain, and while there is most likely much blame to go around for the situation, it's still a situation!
Someone has rightfully observed that we may have to get back to celebrating Christmas for what it's really all about, which is Jesus Christ!