Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

As 2010 come to an end and 2011 is about to awaken, my heart and soul fills with hope, not the kind of hope that pours from the hearts of “Socialists” but the kind of hope that fills the souls of Christian Conservatives. Growing up my father always told me “Anything worth fighting for must be worth dying for, and you must always know that if you die when you fight for something, it was worth it. Freedom, son is always worth fighting for, so always be prepared to die for it should the time ever come”. Those were my thoughts as I raised my hand, to take the oath to defend and protect the “Constitution” as well as “America” and all she stands for! It was not a difficult choice to make in my head and it was not an oath I took lightly, it meant everything to me, I took great pride in knowing that I was willing to give my life so that so many others might live. When the time came for me to prove myself it was with little difficulty that I raised the barrel of my M16, aimed and fired at those who would deprive me or those in the country I served in (Vietnam) of the “life or liberty” that we so enjoyed. As this year comes to an end, and the “New Year” begins, I only wish that I had the youth and energy to look my enemies in their eyes and give my life if called on to do so, and it would be as easy a choice today as it was so many years ago.

Tears fill my eyes easily when it comes to patriotism or love of country, just as easily as when I think of those who make my life complete! I can hardly hide my emotions when it comes to those I love, or those who fill my heart with rage when their evil ways pour into any room where my heart might be near anyone who makes me a better person, or has been a part in saving my soul in some small way. My emotions are easily tampered with and have been played with over the years and I try to harden my outer shell when it comes to the painful truths that each of us must face over the years, but so often we bury our heads in the ground in hopes that our soft shells will not shatter from whatever truths we hide from. The answer is always so clear, if we would only listen and pay attention. God is speaking out to us all the time, sometimes in whispers, sometime in thunderous yelling, but his words are deeply embedded into our thoughts as we try to live our lives with always his words echoing what we sometimes hide from, some time welcome, and sometimes just ignore. But in all the lessons learned, the one thing we should never do is ignore the words or calling of the God who created us all. To turn our back our his calling would certainly be a death sentence, one we would never welcome but fear as to ignore our Lord and God is certain death, one of all eternity without the knowledge of knowing God, in that we can only imagine “Hell” would be our sentence! A sentence that there is no coming back from, it is eternal, it is what all man fears and every man thinks he can escape from by just saying what he thinks that God wants to hear. Do not fool yourself or your children’s fate, for God is real, so real that the mistake of ignoring his reality would be a certain sentence to eternity without ever “seeing” God! Think about that, if you fail to find the answer, you fail yourself, and I am certain of one thing, and that is eternity without God, is “Hell” so just don’t take the chance, kneel down and pray that God accepts you as you are (which he will, he is all forgiving you know) do that and you will find that the truths that I spoke of will come to be what you and I fail to understand about the mystery of God, and that is, he just is.

I have always been a simple minded man, with simple needs and wants, which I received all of my simple thoughts through prayer, never has God failed me, but because I am man, I have failed him many times. As the New Year approaches, I will be thinking of the ways I can make amends for my failures to an all forgiving God who knows of my weaknesses and yet continues to bless me and my family, never asking me to understand, only to believe in him and have a certain faith that he is what he promises, he is our savior, our Lord and God, our creator and just believe and you gain your way into his graces, the wish for all believers is fulfilled with the miracle so little asked from man, only that he believes and accepts Christ as your personal savior and son of our creator, the one and only God!

So many years have passed with God being pushed out of our almost all inclusive lives, why is it so difficult to sacrifice so little to gain such? We have a new opportunity to include God into our lives and regaining what we have almost lost, our salvation! God continues to provide us with opportunity after opportunity to bring him back into our lives yet we close our eyes and ears and continue to shut out the one who reaches out to each of us and asks only that we trust in him and take his hand and follow his lead. If not for only yourself, try doing it for your family, those you love or who love you. Most of all, why not do it for the one who sacrificed his only son for, allowed his son to by your personal savior, suffer, die and give up his life so that you might live, you, me, each of us who makes that choice, why is it so difficult for us, to believe in what has been written, what has been foretold, what has been said and done, for each of us?

Just imagine what it would be like for mankind if we would just give in and believe and accept? If you think it is difficult for us to do that, can you at least imagine how difficult it must have been for God to give up his only son, give him over to the cruelties of man and allow him to be punished, enslaved, suffer the crucifixion, the humility of being spat on, mocked and tortured ( and the progressives think “water boarding” is torture?) Consider what God’s only son was subjected to, the pain of the lashings, the crown of thorns, the spear in his side, after being crucified, nails being driven through the flesh into the wooden cross, what Christ went through for us is far more than any man has been subjected to by those who hate us because we believe and accept the truths of our creator! God help us if we don’t open our eyes soon and see that if we don’t find God soon, we will lose more than the Heaven so many still wonder about, but not for this one humble tired old soldier who wants America to only return to what our founding fathers intended, for “We the People” to humble ourselves once again, fear the wrath of a God who gave so much asking so little, only that we believe in him and we will be saved, such a small request for so much reward in return. How can we not see the truths in what is written, we believe so quickly what the progressives throw out there at us and expect us to wallow in their lives, and so many of us do. Why is it so easy for us to believe in their falsehoods, when God’s truths have so much more “meat” to them, filled with the word of God backing them up? How can we go wrong with that?

My father would kneel down with me, at the end of the day, and together we would pray a simple prayer; “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, but if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take”. The premise of the simple prayer is that God will be there when I close my eyes to go to sleep, and should I wake; my God will be there to guide me through the new day. But, should God decide to take my soul if he decides to take it home, my prayer will still be answered, it is a win-win for me, a child of God. So, as we all go to sleep tonight, and ask God to watch over our souls, we must also ask him for tomorrow, should we awake or not, the world will continue, if it is God’s will, then we must continue our lives with the same expectations of a God who entrusted us with the country he blessed, and placed in our trust. He has never failed us, and we must never fail this loving, giving, and caring God who gave us “America”! As the New Year begins, we must continue our fight, a fight worth dying for, as so many have over the years, we too must prepare for whatever pain lay ahead, as it was never meant to be easy! So, as we get up in the morning and find ourselves facing not only a new day but a new year, “We the People” have a goal to attain, to reach and pass on to our children, one that they can be as proud of as we are. 2012 will be the test of our commitment, can we win back and restore the honor of our America, the one our Forefathers” provided us with. As 2012 begins, all of our children should know the bedtime prayer most of us grew up with, “Now I lay me down to sleep”! When we wake up, will we be ready to take on the “Progressives” and their evil and Socialistic ways that if infused into the American way of life, then never again will we ever have to consider the after effects of waking up after whispering the prayer; “Now I lay me down to sleep”. God bless you all and Happy New Year! Lord, please let it belong to “We the People!” Amen

The True Meaning of Christmas At The Gregory House

When Jesus was delivered in the stable in Bethlehem so very long ago, a very special gift was given to the world. Just think, God gave his only son to mankind, allowed him to be born in poverty under horrible conditions, knowing that he would grow up to pay a horrible price so that our sins might be forgiven and we could spend all eternity in the presence of our “Father” the one and only God, but only after the gift of our lives would be blessed and come to whatever end our creator determined. The story of “Christ” and what he would be destined to do for the sake of saving poor souls filled with the sins of mankind, but forgiven, at least those who believed in him is our prerequisite to gain entrance into his house. That’s all God would ask of man, was for them to accept the scriptures as “Truth” and believe in the printed word that although many would question their validity, it would be faith, unconditional faith and love that would prove to be the key to the door that those who lived their lives in a way that a forgiving God would open and receive each who trusted that he was real and not a fairy tale as many would have us believe. Oh, the story of the “Christ Child” and what he would mean is a story of love, unconditional and a blessed love that only God knows how to give. I am a Roman Catholic, and regardless what Christian faith each of you is, as long as your faith is prefaced “Christian” and you know God’s love, we will all see each other on the other side in the safe and loving presence of our creator.

In a few days those of us who know that God is real, knows that he gave his only son to save our souls, forgive our sins, and bless all of his children as they sit around their “Christmas Trees” and tell the story, the greatest story ever told, the story of the Christ Child and the meaning of Christmas, the true meaning of Christmas, the meaning that gives hope to the hopeless, and peace to those who know only pain and suffering. Never forget, no suffering that any of us may consider more than man can stand, will never compare what Christ suffered so our sins are forgiven. There is no way for man to know the pain that God suffered knowing that he sacrificed his only begotten son to pay for the sins we commit, how could we ever know. One thing is for sure, the wonder of the birth of Christ is the miracle that gave us the key to enter the kingdom of heaven when God calls us. Are we teaching our children of this miracle, or are we teaching them of all the gifts they will be expecting under the tree each year, I pray that we are giving our children the gift of knowing the meaning of Christmas, rather than the expectation of receiving material “things” when we owe them the knowledge of the birth of a small child, the Christ Child, who is the reason we have any hope of entering the kingdom of heaven, where the power of being in the presence of our creator when we leave this world and enter his has been paid for by the blood of that small holy Christ Child, who would grow to be first a “Teacher” and then our savior who would suffer the pain of being beaten and spat upon, soon to be nailed to a cross, all so that our sins might be forgiven and allow us to know what it is to be in the holy presence of God, our loving God who waits for us and asks that we share the beautiful, wonderful story of “Christmas”, the day a small baby boy, the son of God, would be born into this world for one reason only, and that is to save us from our own weaknesses and to forgive our sins. This is the story we must pass on to our children, we must teach them to give without the expectation of receiving. If we fail to do this, we fail our children, we fail ourselves, but most of all, we fail our “Lord God” King of a heaven that only those who believe and know that their faith will gain their entry so that we might witness the glory of the God who created the heavens, the earth and all that is of this earth, as we came from dust, we all shall return to dust, but our souls will rise and through our faith and trust, will become a part of a heaven only God can grant us entry into.

Shame on those of us who fail our children by failing to teach them the meaning, the true meaning of “Christmas”, and most important is that all of our children should know the story of a small child born in “Bethlehem”, in a stable as there was no room at the “Inn” so the son of God entered this world with less than most of our children will ever know and never being given the gift of the story of how God gave us his only son, sacrificed him, so that we may know the kingdom of heaven, know the miracle of Christmas, a gift to man, a gift so great no gift will ever compare and to deny our children the story of Christ’s birth would be a sin that only Christ and his heavenly father has the power to forgive. In my heart I know that those who belong to this site (NWW) are blessed with a deep and strong Christian faith and love of God that would never allow the love of “Things” to ever supersede the true meaning of “Christmas”, the act of giving, for to give out of love for one another is to give from the heart, hearts filled with God’s love, a love so special only those who are filled with belief, trust and a love for our creator that we will never forget to pass on to our children the meaning of “Christmas”, the story of Jesus, a baby born into a world who only knew of what was in the holy scriptures, the promise of a savior, a child who not only is the Christ Child, but a miracle that allows three divine and holy pieces that make up the one true God, (The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost or Spirit) and if you know this to be true, and you believe you have been saved by the coming of Christ into this world, who suffered and crucified so that we might live in and know the very presence of God, then we have a chance!

We can disagree here on earth with each other’s political views, but I pray as we enter the season of the Christ Child, Jesus, son of God, that we do not now or ever allow our human differences interfere or influence or deep Christian faith or belief in our one true God, and that our heavenly father in fact gave us his only son to be bone into this world of sin, suffer, and pass from this life on earth into his life as the son of God who is our savior. If we ever forget that, or lose sight of the importance of his coming, we have lost and will be condemned to an afterlife without ever knowing the presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! Our faith must be cause enough to pass on the story of the “Real Meaning of Christmas” to our children, shame on each of us that allows that to happen.

My Granddaughters will spend Christmas eve with us and when they get up in the morning Santa will have been, but I can promise you this, they will have heard the “real story and true meaning of Christmas” before Christmas eve has passed. We, Val, Emma and Sarah (last two are my granddaughters) will sit by the fire, not far from the customary decorated tree, and will listen intensely as the story of our Christ Child is told with the tenderness always delivered, partly by Val (Nana) and partly by me, (Grandpa). Their little innocent faces will glow as the fire reflects off of them, and they will ask questions about our “Savior”, some will go unanswered as they always have a way to find a question far too complex for our simple minds, but we will always leave them with the truth, that we believe and the importance of them to find it in their pure hearts to consider believing in the “Truths”, read from a book filled with pictures of Mary, Joseph, on their journey to Bethlehem, to the Inn where they are turned away, and finally to the stable where the “Christ Child” is born, the star the guided the three wise men to our savior, and the Angle and the Shepard boy, the whole true story of the miracle of Jesus, a small baby boy, who is our savior. Due to their age we will increase the details as they grow older and we grow wiser. Let us all pray that with this year’s celebration of the coming of Christ, a better understanding of who we are, what we stand for and never, ever forgetting that without God’s blessings, without our trust and faith, there is no America, not the way we were blessed with her, so we cannot fail the future of our children, we must give them hope, something to believe in, a truth that God is real, is forgiving, and is “Love”!

Merry Christmas and God bless you all, Milt, Val and our granddaughters, tomorrows future.