God forgets the past... Imitate Him.

We celebrate the First Advent to whet our appetites for the Second. We long for the next coming.

And we need to share our story. Not with everyone but with someone. There is someone who is like you were. And he or she needs to know what God can do. Your honest portrayal of your past may be the courage for another's future.

That's what I'm hoping we can all do, is come together in a spirit of prayer.

Whether or not storms come, we can not choose. But where we stare during a storm, that we can.

There is a rawness and a wonder to life. Pursue it. Hunt for it. Sell out to get it. Don't listen to the whines of those who have settled for a second-rate life and want you to do the same so they won't feel guilty. Your goal is not to live long; it's to live.

One of the greatest gifts we can give people is the hope that their death is nothing to fear - you know, not that it has no fear in it, but the promise of scripture is that God will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death.