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    What Gifts Does the Christ Child Bring
    What Gifts Does the Christ Child Bring
    What Gifts Does the Christ Child Bring
    Ebook58 pages44 minutes

    What Gifts Does the Christ Child Bring

    By Joan Uda

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    About this ebook

    These twenty-three stories combine the joyous, hopeful, inspirational parts of Advent and Christmas with life's inevitable pain, grief and just plain everydayness. Some are funny, and all explore the deep meanings and spiritual loveliness of this most inspirational season. Joan Uda writes to show how our own lives and celebrations are illuminated by the life and death of Jesus Christ.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRice Universe Publishing
    Release dateDec 23, 2012
    ISBN9781301714438
    What Gifts Does the Christ Child Bring
    Author

    Joan Uda

    Joan Uda is a retired United Methodist Minister. She began her professional life as a teacher, then became an attorney, and at last answered her childhood call to ministry. She writes a weekly column, preaches, teaches and conducts workshops. She lives in Montana with her husband Lowell. They have four children and five grandchildren.

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      Book preview

      What Gifts Does the Christ Child Bring - Joan Uda

      What Gifts Does the Christ Child Bring?

      By Joan Uda

      Published by Rice Universe Publishing at Smashwords

      Copyright 2012 Joan Uda

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright  1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Edited by Lowell Uda

      RICE UNIVERSE PUBLISHING

      P.O. Box 7505

      Helena, MT 59604

      http://www.riceuniversepublishing.com

      Table of Contents

      Rejoice, It’s Advent

      Advent, the Season of Hope

      Attending Christmas

      John the Baptist: Preparing Advent’s Way

      The Far Place of Adoption

      Summoning Advent

      Shop ‘til You…What?

      Journey to Bethlehem

      Christ in Christmas Boxes

      I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light

      All-Day Sucker

      Silence in the Heart of Christmas

      Can You Hear the Christmas Lights Singing?

      What Gifts Does the Christ Child Bring?

      Abundant Christmas Blessings

      Caroling in the Heart and Soul of Christmas

      Holy Infant Sweet and Mild

      Baby Blue Star

      The Day the Christmas Tree Crashed

      Home for Christmas

      From a Christmas Past

      A Very Merry Christmas Day

      Christmas Angels

      Brief Bio of the Author

      Books by Joan Uda

      Praise for Joan Uda's At the Water's Edge Vol. I

      And for At the Water's Edge Vol. II

      Other Readers Say

      Rejoice, It’s Advent

      Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, and there is something in me -- something wild, from the north country, all frozen ground and biting wind -- that loves how dusk falls early now, in golds, pinks and purples over our valley. It falls over our garden too, over the autumn beauty of the pines and spruce, the bare-limbed snow crabs and apricot trees, the red and yellow-stemmed dogwood. Even the asters and mums have given up their vibrant colors and turned brown, going underground to rest and recuperate until next spring. The air crackles with cold and snow appears on our mountains.

      From my study window I see the lights of town in the distance and I’m drawn to them. When I retired from ministry in Colorado and returned here to Montana, my husband Lowell still had eight more months to pastor his church there. My first Advent back home I was alone, and I’d sit watching how night slipped down and veiled the landscape. I was joyful at being here, yet teary at the long wait until my sweetheart of four decades could join me.

      Advent is like that for me, a time of light and dark, joy and waiting. Like most of us, I revel in Christmas preparations, putting up the tree, watching lights appear in neighborhoods and wondering if they’ll be as beautiful this year as last.

      The light is special because right around Christmas is the darkest part of the year, with the shortest days. I think it’s no accident that many cultures celebrate with light during this dark season.

      For Christians, our celebration is the birth of Jesus, who is our way, truth, light. Jesus came to walk with us on earth and show us how God calls us to treat each other. I want to walk as a child of the light, we sing.

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