A Cold Water Christmas


I want to say “Thanks” to everyone who has glanced at this journal since it started last month.  As time goes by, I want to post sermon outlines and illustrations, devotional thoughts, personal reflections, preaching tips, and links to newspaper stories that have strong biblical connections.  (Check out this story in today’s Christian Post about 400 members of a church in Kansas City who went to work dressed as Jesus this week)

In the meantime, Katrina and I are leaving after Sunday’s morning service for our family home in Roan Mountain, so this is my last entry for 2008.

While we’re away, we’re going to have a tankless hot water system installed in our home in Nashville.  Our hot water heater went out on Christmas Eve, and we’ve been taking sponge baths (Debbie Warner called them bird baths), heating water in the tea kettle, and using paper plates.

Katrina recalled growing up in a plumbing-challenged home, and she said that as a little girl she bathed in a big tub by the wood stove in the kitchen of her New England house.  There as a square opening in the ceiling, allowing heat from the stove to warm the upstairs, and her brothers sometimes teased her by threatening to peek through the hole.

Now that we’re older, we miss our hot water more, but we recall that Joseph and Mary didn’t have hot water in the stable, either.  Imagine giving birth in a cattle stall without so much as heat or running water.

Well, the Lord bless you as the year closes; and may your New Year be filled with goodness, mercy, and lots of hot water.