Remembering

This Christmas, more than ever, I wanted to keep Christ in our Christmas celebration and help my children more fully understand that the greatest gift we have ever been given is the gift of the atonement and eternal life, from our Savior Jesus Christ. As I found many ways to teach my children this, and we talked about it daily, and tried to do service to each other to "give presents to Christ", I realized that if I wanted to have Christ in our Christmas celebration, I had to start with myself. I knew that my relationship with Christ was key to teaching my children. I began some scripture study that differs from my "usual" daily study. On recommendation from our Stake president, I studied a different aspect of Christ each day. I just went straight from the topical guide and went down topic to topic, looking up the different scriptures in all the different books of scripture. I would mark them, think about them, and then write about them in a journal. I learned SO much about Christ from every different topic. I could feel the spirit so strongly as I did this. I was amazed. Some topics took one day, and others I would read about for two or three days. The week of Christmas I happened to be on the topic of "Jesus Christ, the birth of". As I read through the many familiar scriptures, and the prophecies of old, I was so overwhelmed and grateful for the plan of salvation and for the gift of our Savior in our lives. Each day that I read, I felt closer to my savior, the Nativity story had more meaning, and the season was filled with more joy. The Christmas carols that I listened to truly sounded like angels hailing the birth of our Savior, I seemed to be more aware of the needs of others, and everything had more meaning and I felt Christ in our home. It was an amazing experience...one that many probably have all the time, but I was thankful to be having during this holiday. I am going to continue this line of study and I am grateful that we can learn so much about Christ, just by opening our Bible and Book of Mormon.

I love the above picture of Christ. It is a photograph taken by a LDS photographer named Mark Mabry. I LOVE his work. He has recreated many of the scenes of Christs life...and the results are awe inspiring. To see a slide show of these amazing shots, go to www.reflectionsofchrist.org If you click on Multimedia and then go to video or slide show, you can see all of his work put to a beautiful song. Watching it, I felt so close to my savior and felt a personal connection. I think this slide show is being shown at the Arizona temple visitors center. There is also a documentary about this photographer, and it captures the process he went through to get these amazing shots. I think you can watch excerpts of this on the website. So beautiful.

So though this Christmas could have been a hard one for us as John's company closed recently and he is now out of work, money is tight, and many that we know are going through hard times, it ended up being a very special season for me. There are so many around us dealing with struggles greater than our. An amazing and humble father is fighting a life threatening cancer. A dear friend has lost loved ones and dealt with horrible sicknesses in her own family. Divorce, job losses, and home losses are all things that people around us are dealing with. Our heart and prayers goes out to all of those around us who are struggling. We have been so grateful for the generosity of friends and family to our little family. I know that the Lord blesses us through angels on earth. Through all of this...we are able to "REMEMBER" that Christ has suffered for All of our pain. He knows us all and wants us all to come to him. He truly is the "ultimate gift" that we have all received. I am so very grateful for that.