This is the first time that I am celebrating Christmas and sending my love to family members, friends, clients and online followers through a blog post.

I love Christmas! Don’t we all do?  I remember we used to do house-to-house Christmas caroling when I was a child. We enjoyed joining “palaro” and various Christmas parties in our subdivision. Through the years, we get to celebrate Christmas with reunions, seeing once again our families and old friends. It’s never complete without that Christmas Party, right?

The way we celebrate Christmas reveals our understanding of who Jesus is. For the past years, my version of Christmas was a time of gift giving, taking vacations, reunions, spending time with family, and shopping, shopping and shopping! Ohhh the kind of perspective I had back then! These were all wonderful, and one that I always look forward to.  This year though, Christmas is very special.  I realized that Christmas is more than any of these. Christmas brings the good news of great joy to me with God’s greatest gift, Jesus Christ our Savior. Christmas is God’s assurance to me and to all of us that He loves us…His assurance that we can be full of joy.

This morning as I joyfully look at 2017, I smiled and tears of joy just welled up. I understand now that God allowed me to experience challenges in life because He was more concerned in developing my character, learning how to process pressure and maturing through it.

This year, my best decision was to have totally embraced Jesus’ call to follow Him and trust Him no matter what the circumstances are. I took a step of faith to get out of my comfort zone, let go of my sins, surrender my fears and pride and obeyed God 100%.  I cannot do it on my own, it is all by GOD’s grace.  I gave up my very self–to be mindful of others–and to focus on how to bring the greatest happiness to others. Because of this, I experienced JOY that is beyond compare! For me that is the true meaning of Christmas.

God showed me that there is no sin so deep that the grace of God cannot reach; no mistake so fatal that the grace of God cannot redeem; and no past so dark that the grace of God cannot transform. God showed my husband and my children that we have the assurance of the grace of God and that Christmas is for all people. Remember, regardless of our past, we can have the assurance of God’s grace, love and a new beginning!!! I finally understand and believe that grace can never be bought or earned. We do not deserve to receive His grace but God is telling us that no matter what, He still chooses to love us.

Christmas is God’s assurance to us that He loves us and that we can have the fullness of joy in Him. Do you believe this? To believe is not always easy, but if we want the joy of Christmas in its fullness, we should believe and be full of joy!

May the true spirit of Christmas live in our hearts! Merry Christmas from my family to yours!