Grace Upon Grace

Today I'll be thinking about Christmas - I already am. My task - and I really need to complete the project this weekend - is to write a study-guide for my 2008 book "In My Heart I Carry A Star: stories for Advent."

The book is designed to be read, one day at a time, over the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The read works well as an individual devotional journey. However, and this is an exciting development, last year a number of churches adopted "In My Heart..." as a congregation-wide study and a lot of small-groups and Sunday-school classes studied the text together, as a group.

So, with people already beginning to make advance curriculum and purchasing decisions, my publisher has asked me to write a study guide that will be made available (free of charge) on the bookstore website.

I think it's a great idea. Christmas, for me, is all about the breaking in of light into a dark world. It's about hope, peace, love and joy. And Advent is simply the careful, prayerful, purposeful spiritual journey to Bethlehem.

So today I'm thinking, prayerfully and meditatively, about light breaking in to Friday, August 6, and about a weekend full with grace.

"For of his fullness have we all received, and grace upon grace" (John 1:16)