December 2008 #3

Dear Family, Friends & Prayer Warriors:
“MUSINGS” December 2008 #3 By Leslie G. Newell
(Sharing Thoughts Past & Present By A Home Missionary Past His Prime.)

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year To All My Musings Readers..

FROM A CHRISTMAS PAST – As my son Gary was leaving today to have Christmas with their daughter and family in the Cleveland area, he reminded me of the following. When we started our first church in Federal Way, Washington we had obtained five acres of property with an older home on the west end of it and we built our first church on the east end of it. There was a dead-end gravel road that stopped just past the parsonage among a lot of fir trees. It was a great place to find our Christmas trees. My wife Kathy was always very particular about the size and shape of the tree chosen. The first one we cut down ended up being too big for our living room. I don’t remember what was wrong with the second tree but we ended up with three Christmas tree to bring back the one that met the need. It really wasn’t a waste because the elementary school where John and Gary attended school that was on the east side of our church property. Both of the boys provided Christmas trees for their classes. The day is long past now when most people can go out into the woods or forest and cut their own tree but those were joyous days for our family.

MISSED MUSINGS – This is the first day I have been on the computer for a week or two as I have been too weak and short of breath to even think about checking e-mails or writing a Musings. Monday I went to the hospital as an outpatient to have fluid removed from my left lung again. It was two and a half litres this time. That is one way to lose weight quickly. I think I weight eight pounds lighter today than I did before the procedure. I am feeling better now and praying the fluids don’t come back again.

PHARMACUTICAL SHOCK – UPS delivered Betty’s refill today for one of her chemo pills. Get this, two bottles of pills with 28 in each to achieve the required amount by taking one of each twice a day for fourteen days. The price: $1,303.33! How thankful we are for real good insurance. There is a second pill that she takes five of each day an hour before a meal. I know the price of that one would shock you as well. I guess the lesson here is, if you want to be in a moneymaking business, be a pill maker. When I see lists of the actual cost of ingredients found in pills, it is outrageous.

A CHRISTMAS RITUAL AGAIN – The discussion and argument all over again as it is each year anymore. Cities are being attacked for displaying manger scenes, etc. The politically correct avoiding the term “Merry Christmas” by using “Happy Holidays.” If I were to get into a discussion over the word “Christmas” I’d much rather discuss a preference over “Christ’s Day” or Christ’s Birth,” rather than “Christ’s Mass.” But, then, I’d be getting into a discussion that goes way over the heads or understanding of most today. Christmas did not have its origin with early Christian believer but rather a religion that had its beginnings much later. A thought, of course, that would be denied by its founders. But, we have come to a time in history that has forgotten those things long ago. Anyway, have a blessed Christ’s Day.