Five Ways to Make the Holidays More Peaceful - "Though the holidays are often a festive time full of family gatherings, they can also bring unique challenges. Family dynamics and relationships between extended family members bring joy—and hurt. Extended families are a blessing and it's worth figuring out Christ-honoring ways to navigate these relationships. Even when it's difficult, we love the people around us because God first loved us; our love for others flows out of the love we've known in Christ."
How Will You Make This Advent Special? - This daily advent devotional from Desiring God is the one our family will be doing this December.
Five Truths About Thanksgiving - Even though a month and a half has passed since Canadian Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving is only tomorrow, and so American Joseph Scheummen has some excellent thoughts on it. He reminds us that Thanksgiving is not simply one day a year in which we eat turkey and count our blessings but "Thanksgiving is a pervasive and essential concept in Scripture. And although it is good to set aside a Thursday each November to cultivate a heart of thanksgiving, the Scriptures have more to say about giving thanks than one day a year can handle."
Exult in the Savior's Birth - This is a beautiful new advent song written by D.A. Carson and Matt Boswell. It's available here for free download.
Why Do We Sing? - "It was a warm summer evening, and the crowd was ready to sing. The sun was setting over the Iroquois Amphitheater, and a man in a white suit was working his way through the rows of seats, one hand in the air, his shoulders stooped and his voice graveled by age. He sang and beckoned us to sing along, directing haphazardly with the movements of his hands, the crowd breathing in unison as we sang along."
Christians Christmas Grinches - Funny, but true. "It seems like every time Christmas rolls around, a couple rage-against-the-Christmas-machine blog posts go viral. The kind that blast Christians for ruining everything with commercialism, toys made in sweatshops, and too many reindeer games. For a season that’s supposed to be full of joy and peace, we can be awfully angry and confrontational this time of year. Downright grinchy at times."
The Gospel: An "It" or a "He"? - The distinction may seem unimportant, but it surely is not.
Nothing More to Need: A Profile of Christian Courage - "It began harmlessly enough—just a little bit of numbness in three toes. At first it was no more than an annoyance, but then the numbness spread to her foot and began to creep upward. Soon it was accompanied by fatigue, nausea, headaches. She visited a doctor and then a neurologist who promptly arranged a battery of tests. And then the diagnosis: “I am so sorry, but it is a brain tumor.” Though the tumor was benign, it was in a bad spot, right at the junction of the brain and the spinal cord. In that moment she knew her life had changed forever."
The Word of the Year - And Oxford Dictionaries' word of the year is ... selfie.