welcome

When my family was together for the holidays in 2020 I mentioned that I really like the Willow Tree Nativity. It was the first one I'd noticed that Mary is holding baby Jesus. I was searching for one and asked Beth about the site I was looking at. She told me not to buy it. I asked if it wasn't a reputable place and she replied "we already bought it for you." It was my Mother's Day/Birthday gift last year. I stored it safely in a closet until time to decorate for Christmas 2021. It's still on my mantle. 

February 22, 2022 I was with Anita picking up some things she'd bought from an online auction. The auctioneer began a new sale and there was an item she wanted so we sat down. A pillow was put up and someone lowballed the price. I know the auctioneer and knew what it was worth so I began a bidding war. I misjudged how high the other person was willing to go, but I got a great deal on a beautiful pillow that speaks of my heartbeat. 

Thursday as I was walking from the kitchen to wherever I was headed, probably outside, I stopped. For the first time, I put the words on the pillow alongside the figures on my mantle and my heart was filled to overflowing with praise and a loud YES! 

I'll be working on a sign to add to the display on my mantle. All are welcome to come to Jesus. There is no sin so despicable, no failure so huge, no anything too much that He cannot and will not welcome you into His presence. His mercy is rich and His grace lavish. His forgiveness cannot be measured- it stretches from the east to the west. His love is a beautiful, unmatchable gift. He is the Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer and Restorer of life. You are welcome to join me here, wherever you are.

Colossians 1:9-23 CSB

"For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him.He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him—if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard..."