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they sang "Silent Night, Holy Night" for the first time

12/14/2018

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One cold, snowy evening in 1818, Joseph Mohr, the Associate Pastor of the the Church of St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, Austria, walked home from attending a presentation of the story of Jesus' birth performed by an acting group.  From a hilltop, he observed the peaceful, snow-covered village.  The scene brought to mind a poem that he had penned a few years earlier about the angels announcing Jesus' birth to the shepherds on the hillside.  

He decided that his poem could be the basis of a carol that he could introduce to his congregation the next evening at the Christmas Eve service.  However, he had no music to accompany the words.  Mohr approached Franz Gruber, the church organist, the next day to see if he would compose the music for his poem.  The organist had been unable to play the organ due to a malfunction of the organ, so he needed to create a tune that would be easily played on guitar.  Gruber successfully wrote a simple tune to go to Mohr's words and they sang "Silent Night, Holy Night" for the first time to the congregation that evening. 

Weeks later, Karl Mauracher, a well-known organ builder, arrived at the Oberndorf church to repair the organ.  After the repair, he asked Gruber to test the organ.  Gruber played the simple tune that he had recently composed for "Silent Night."  Deeply moved by the tune, Mauracher took copies of the new Christmas carol back to his village at Kapfing.  Two well-known families of singers--the Rainiers and the Strassers--heard it and began to perform it at Christmas presentations.  In 1834, the Strassers sang "Silent Night" for King Frederick William IV of Prussia and he ordered his cathedral choir to sing it every Christmas Eve.
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The little things we take for granted

12/6/2018

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It was a beautiful Thanksgiving Day with lots of sunshine and a pleasant temperature.  I had enjoyed having lunch with family members and decided that it was the perfect day to go for a walk with the dogs.  My daughter Laura joined me.  During the walk, I got spooked by another dog and quickly turned to go the opposite direction, lost my balance and landed on the asphalt.  I realized when I fell that I had probably broken a bone.  A little while later, my husband and daughter brought me to Limestone Medical Center for care.  Sure enough, I suffered two fractures in my pelvis.  Not what I had planned for Thanksgiving or the upcoming Advent and Christmas seasons!

During this time of recovery, I have realized how grateful that I am for the ability to do small things.  The daily activities like brushing my teeth or fixing my breakfast, that I do on a normal basis have now become major chores that expend far more energy than I expected, coupled with pain.  I am so grateful for family, friends, and church members who have reached out to me with their love, concern and prayers.  I am very appreciative of the love and care that the staff at Limestone Medical Center provided for me.  God has worked through so many people and through His own compassionate touch to bring me healing little by little.  I am still not completely recovered and probably will not be for awhile, but I am so grateful for the ability to do all those little things that I had previously taken for granted.
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THE SEASON OF GIVING

12/6/2018

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December is considered a season of giving.  People give close to Christmas to commemorate God's greatest gift, his Son, Jesus Christ.  When Jesus was young, the Magi of the East brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the child King.  This is where the tradition of gift-giving during December originated.  Today, people may give to charities for tax write-offs in December.  A more spiritual way of looking at giving is that we give because God has given to us.  God has given to us our lives and the wonderful things in life that we enjoy, and God's Son Jesus Christ who offers us salvation and eternal life.

I recently read a story about a young girl who felt compelled to give in return for all that she had been given.  The young girl regularly attended a local church's after-school program.  Her mother was a poor, single mother who battled the crippling disease of alcoholism.  The church continued to offer hope and caring to the young girl, which did not go unnoticed by her.  One day, just prior to the beginning of the program, she handed her pastor a heavy, small paper sack.  It was filled with pennies that she had collected for several months.  She was so grateful for the after-school program that she wanted to give something back to it.  Twenty years later, this young girl is now a full-time children's director in a church, and it all started with the act of giving by that local church many years before.   

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    Pastor Bill Laubenberg

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 -  Kosse, TX 76653

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