The View From My Window Pastor's Weekly Blog

We greatly enjoyed having our son Josh, his wife Andrea, and their new baby Parker home for the week of Thanksgiving. There is something surreal about seeing your kids take care of a baby.

I really appreciated my wife’s organizational skills as we prepared for the visit and all our friends that loaned us baby equipment! You basically have to remodel your house when a baby is coming to stay for a while. But what I most appreciate is the fact that those old baby watching skills seem to come back when you need them. I was able to take the early morning shift with Parker which allowed his parents to enjoy some well deserved sleep. Even though the baby had a few fussy times (nothing compared to when our kids had colic) I remained calm and seemed to know what to do.

There’s a relaxedness about being a grandpa that may not have been as pronounced when I was a dad (their having colic probably had something to do with that). Barb noted how very comforting it is to hold a sleeping baby. A new life in a family, even when its sleeping, sure adds new life to a family.

– Pastor Joel Everhart

For a brief instant we had our grandson to hold but now Thanksgiving is past, relatives have dispersed, and for a short time we focus on the major holiday of the season. In the blink of an eye Christmas will have come and gone.

There will be moments when the wind chill causes us to grit our teeth as we recognize that it is indeed wintertime. But just as we think we can’t take the cold any longer, spring will arrive and we will once again dash through summer.

All of life goes by so quickly. Be thankful, give generously, laugh often, love extravagantly for life is short and days like these are precious. Soon each one of us will appear before God to give an account of how we lived. The Bible tells us that God puts more emphasis on how we finish than on any other part of our life. So finish well. Put on your track shoes. Run in such a way as to win the race and finish with a burst.

Not that you need to get busier or become more stressed; certainly not! Deepen your roots into the Lord, become more serious about serving others and never miss an opportunity to express God’s love to another human being. Everybody runs; few run well.

– Pastor Joel Everhart