Hope - The Heart of Christmas, by Deacon Sue Crowninshield

The Christmas Story tells us that God came into the world in the form of a baby named Jesus. Jesus came to bring love, light and hope to the hearts of humankind. It is with this hope that we can find positive vision for our lives today and in the future.
God created us a visual beings with incredible imaginations. Our eyes actually take in 4 billion bytes of information every second. The minute that input reaches our brain, that data is processed, forming a 3-D color picture in our minds.
If we hear someone say for instance, "A large speckled horse", our minds don't see words but our minds show us an image of that horse with speckles all over it. A picture conjured up from our computer memory banks.
In that same way, we each have a mental picture of our ourselves in our imagination. What might that look like? Our self image sets the standard at which we function. If we want to accomplish a higher standard, for instance, we must raise that standard higher. If we don't choose to raise our image our vision for our lives can be limited.
God created us with the ability for both physical and spiritual sight. When we learn to look at life through our eyes of faith or with our spiritual eyes, we can accomplish our dreams; receiving more, giving more, loving more, and enjoying our lives more. It is with the "God image" of ourselves and with the strength God gives us that allows us to do this imagery practice.
"We produce what we continually keep in front of us." If we keep an image of success in our minds, we will move toward success. But if we see ourselves as just barely getting by in the intelligence area, the success area or in anyway less than what God created us, then our lives will gravitate toward negative situations. It's a simple truth that we cannot give birth to something we have not yet conceived. We must conceive through the eyes of faith, that God gives us the power to carry out the promises he has given to us. Let's start allowing God to use our imagiantions to build us up to help us accomplish God's dreams for the world and the dreams God has for us as well.
Let's see our imaginations as a canvass that we can paint any kind of picture we choose through our thoughts and attitudes and what we decide to focus on. Don't let doubt and fear paint on our canvasses. We must paint with the brush of faith, the brush of hope, and the brush of expectation.
Jesus came to the world to bring light and love into the darkness; TO BE LOVE; teaching us to love ourselves and to love one another. As we celebrate Jesus'coming into the world, we celebrate Jesus being born anew within oursleves filling us with light and love. Let's us paint the hope of Jesus on our hearts.
A Very Blessed Christmas Season to you all,
Deacon Sue Crowninshield