Aden Yerichuk turned Hot Chocolate into hope. The Stollery Children’s Hospital will benefit from $2,124.25 plus Aden's birthday money on January 8th. His 2-year old sister goes for heart surgery at the Stollery in January to repair holes in her heart.

This week Connor McDavid made an unpublicized visit to the Stollery. When kids who are deathly ill meet Connor they forget their suffering as they wait for him to sign a jersey or a hospital gown. Stars have the power to make a difference just by showing up.

God showed up our neighbourhood. That’s what Christmas is all about.

Christmas changes how we spell God - "E-M-M-A-N-U-E-L" - "God is with us."

Christmas is explained by the word incarnation. We sing it every year in our Christmas carols. "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Charles Wesley wrote that, and one line you've sung says, "Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see; Hail the incarnate Deity."
When you understand the word incarnation, you understand what Christmas is about.

God changed places.
Heaven came to earth.
God became man.
The invisible became observable.
Infinity squeezed into a finite form.
The eternal became bound by time.
The invincible became vulnerable.
God came to our neighbourhood.

The scandalous declaration of Christmas is that the Bethlehem child is none other than the creator God. He became one of us.

Why? Because authenticity cannot be observed from a distance.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.” 1 John 1:1-3

Christmas is boldly historical
Look at what John says: We saw it. We heard it. Our own eyes, our own ears. We felt it, this eternal Life.
Here's what he's saying: When we give you these accounts of Jesus walking on the water, of Jesus rising from the dead, of Jesus speaking these words, these are not legends. These are not things we made up. These are things we saw. We saw him do this. We heard him do this.

Here's the one thing Christmas presses us on. First John 1:1—2 is saying: These are either lies you're reading in the New Testament or they're eyewitness accounts, but they can't be legends.
When John says, “I heard him with my own ears, I saw him with my own eyes," everyone would know immediately he was claiming to be an eyewitness.

Christmas is more than just a sentimental seasonal celebration. If it were then heartache at Christmas would have no hope.
Christmas is sacred.
Yesterday I helped one of members with a funeral for his sibling who died suddenly of a heart attack this week.
Jocelyn and I shared communion with one of our younger members who is now in hospice care in St Albert.
Next Saturday I’ll have help another family with a memorial service whose 20-year old son died suddenly this week.

The mom who's son died this week told me, "I was in Dollar Tree last night, and there was a lady and two kids behind me in the LONG line. One was a big kid, and the other one was a toddler. The bigger one had a pack of glow sticks, and the toddler was screaming for them. The Mom opened the pack and gave him one, which stopped his tears. He walked around with it smiling; but then the bigger boy took it, and the toddler started screaming again. Just as the Mom was about to fuss, the older child bent the glow stick and handed it back to the toddler. As we walked outside at the same time, the toddler noticed that the stick was now glowing and his brother said, "I had to break it so that you could get the full effect from it."
I almost ran, because I could hear God saying to me, "I had to break you to show you why I created you. You had to go through it so you could fulfill your purpose."
That precious child was happy just swinging that "unbroken" glow stick around in the air, because he didn't understand what it was created to do - which was "glow".

There are some people who will be content just "being," but some of us that God has chosen... we have to be "broken."
We get sick.
We lose a job.
We go through a divorce.
We bury our spouse, parents, best friend, or our child...
In those moments of desperation, God is breaking us.

But... when the breaking is done, then we will be able to see the reason for which we were created. So when you see us glowing, just know that we have been broken but healed by His Grace and Mercy!!!"

The gift of gratitude is the gift that keeps on giving. We have created "Gratitude jars." Each jar has colored paper in it. In 2019 write down the good things God does for you. At the end of the year review all that God did for you. One jar per family.

Gratitude can literally change your life. Research has shown that gratitude reduces stress, depression, and insomnia. It helps people be happier, healthier and more resilient facing adversity.