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Christmas Contest

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Winner #3: Deborah Dull


This entry is a boatload  (or a sleigh-load) of compassion, energy and creativity, with a big Santa sack of hospitality thrown on top!  I cannot love this more. So often, we become selfish with the opportunities that come during the holidays. I do think it’s a fine thing to have some private family moments and traditions. But we (I) have to do better about being willing to open our doors and hearts to those who may be a little less likely to be merry-making in current circumstances. This is a “winner” from Deborah Dull:

 

Christmas was a big deal at my mom’s house. My parents lived in a small community called Zellwood, Florida. On Christmas Eve my mother always had open house for anybody that lived in the community. She had been cooking for days and of course, any leftovers went to the local fire department. My dad played Santa Claus and rode around town giving out small gifts. when I got married things did not change much. I continued to travel from North Carolina to Florida every year at Christmas time. These are the memories that my daughter has of Christmas at grandmother‘s house.

But as things happen one year, my daughter was gone and my husband and I could not get to Florida. And none of his family was going to be in NC for Christmas. Love the man to death, but I’m not sitting at home on Christmas Day. Just looking at each other. We had a lot of single friends, young and old alike. We called them up and asked them if they would like to come for Christmas morning breakfast. We had eight that first year. And in the years to come, we had as many as 26.

This tradition is what my grandson grew up, knowing about Christmas. That and cutting down a tree on our farm… And after 26 years, he decided to start this tradition at his house, and I was given a break.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Holiday Contest Winners!

Grandmothers. You had two of them, even if you never knew either. But those of us who had really grand ones and were able to know them and be nurtured by their positive influences, were given these treasures far prior to the time when we could really appreciate their value in our lives—even in our eternities. 

I would venture to say, for many readers, the holidays are memory handles that allow us to keep in touch with the good natures, generous spirits and attentive offerings of time that our grandmothers brought to the magic of Christmas. I had that grandmother and there will always be sounds and smells that arrest my senses during the season of giving, and make me wish that I could have one more conversation with my grandmother. I can feel closest to her during the holidays while simultaneously missing her the most. 

Because we had so many wonderful submissions about grandmothers, we have five winners instead of four this Christmas.  I just had a hard time choosing. The winners are: Rachel Gardner, Rachel Valentin, Maxine Knoll, Deborah Dull and Leah Wright.  All of you will receive your  $25.00 gift card via email within the next few hours. Thanks for entering and thanks for the memories! 

If you’re a Christian grandmother, don’t take the Lois charge of 2 Timothy 1:5 lightly. It’s your blessed privilege to be instrumental in the placement of the faith that saves in the little hearts of the grands. If you’re not  yet to the grandmother “stage,”, watch and learn from  those who are grand-parenting for that grand day of eternal consequence when the grands will, prayerfully, hear the words “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”  If you’re he granddaughter of a woman who’s still serving and evangelizing and whose eyes are focused on heaven, count yourself rich…and follow that woman!

The first winner in Rachel Gardner. Here’s what she said (and she sent some vintage photographs). I thought it was sweet that, while she recognizes and tell us that her grandmother was not a Christian, Rachel can still pinpoint  areas in her grandmother’s life that were influenced by a culture that was magnanimously  molded by principles of the Bible.  I long for those days in our society again. We move farther from them each year.  Look for hospitality, lack of materialistic focus, generosity, laughter and  contentment.

When I think of grandmothers and Christmas, my mind goes back to my own grandmother. While she was not a Christian, she was hospitable and loving like all Christians should be. Whether it was Christmas or not, her house was always welcome to visitors. She had a modest sized house, but that did not matter to her. During Christmas, all four of her children, their spouses and their children, crammed into her house and enjoyed wonderful fellowship and delicious goodies! Half of her living room was filled with gifts and twenty (or so) of us would spread out in the living room and dining room to make sure we had room to open the gifts. My grandmother also had a sense of humor and would give a gag gift to a different person each year. Not only that, but she would hide it in a different spot each year so that it would be opened last while everyone else gazed on. My gag gift was a gallon jar of pickles and she hid it in her water heater closet. Those pickles were gone within two weeks! Years later, she allowed all of us to take the Christmas decorations we wanted.

I’ll post the other winning paragraphs through the next few days!

P.S. Please message me if you  are one of the five winners and you have not received your redemption code in your email. Happy shopping!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

And the Winner Is…

We had to choose winners! It was so fun to try to narrow down the entries for the HOPE Christmas contest. But, alas, we could not whittle it down to just one winner. So, this year, there are two winners. Jennifer Nichols, of Fayette, Alabama, wins with her extra sweet video of three precious children at home doing what makes kids grow up into faithful Christians. You can see the kids in the photo, but you’ll want to watch this. The teeny one was so very proud. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1378893806346386

Kerri Epling, of Elizabethton, Tennessee, submitted another winning entry. This one is of a children’s Bible class. It’s precious and this teacher is putting the most precious treasure in little hearts.

Congratulations to Jennifer and Kerri. Send me your addresses (or the addresses to which the HOPE sets should go) and I will get them to you as fast as I can! You win five items—all five items in the HOPE set. It’s an in-depth study book, two sets of sturdy flash cards (the original character set and the new Virtues and Vices set), a beautiful timeline, and a fun matching game. 

If you don’t have your set yet and you want to see them, there’s the special holiday bundle here.

Happy teaching, merry Christmas and may your New Year be full of the virtues these children are learning for life!

Don’t you love the Word of God?!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Bleating and the Bleeding

All of my inboxes have been sheepish for the past three months! I never truly thought about the saturating presence of sheep in our western culture until we studied about sheep and shepherds and wool and wolves for a few weeks in our Digging Deep study. But you found, made, wore and decorated your study rooms with sheep intensely there for a few weeks. Best of all, you learned from the Good Shepherd, Jesus the Christ, the Messiah. He is the anointed sacrificial lamb. While we had no other recourse, but to cry as sheep that are bleating to Him for rescue, He became one of us so that He could become that bleeding Lamb. That’s the over-arching lesson from the past couple of months.

Here are the two latest (and some of the sweetest) DIggers’ lamb creations that have come my way. One is a table decoration at Little Mountain church in Winchester, Tennessee. The other is an ornament that I get to hang on my tree. It’s from Tracy Jeter, of the Noah church, in Manchester, Tennessee. (All those “chester” places are good with the sheep!) 

Don’t forget you have two more days to get your submissions in to the contest! Winner will receive the entire HOPE bundle for teaching children the Word. A $60.00 holiday value, it includes a study guide for parents, a set of sturdy character flash cards, a timeline for putting the Bible characters in their historic perspective, a set of character trait flash cards for real life application and a memory game using the characters. It can literally fill up your kids’ or grandkids Bible time year in 2024. You can get all the contest info here:https://thecolleyhouse.org/its-christmas-contest-time

(If you can’;t get your video to upload The Colley House Facebook page, just send it to my personal Facebook Messages or to byhcontest@gmail.com)

Enjoy the holidays. If you are hurting, as so many I know are this season, you may not enjoy, but you will faithfully serve.  While we do not have any Biblical authority to claim we know the date of Christ’s birth or to celebrate it as a spiritual holiday, isn’t it nice when more people are focusing on the Lord? Let’s you and me remember the birth, life, death and teachings of the anointed one, the Messiah, every day of every year!

 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

It’s Christmas Contest Time!

The Colley House Christmas Contest is now! With a nod to the new HOPE series for families and congregations, we want to include children in the contest this year. You can win the entire HOPE set for Bible learning. There are two simple ways to enter. (Just pick one option and go with it! Here’s how:

1. Post a short video of your kids using the HOPE set in your family Bible time or in your kids’ class at church. We’d love to see how they are learning! Post to The Colley House Facebook page.

OR

2. Send an email to byhcontest@gmail.com describing your best and most effective Family Bible Time tip. This can be a “keeping kids’ attention” tip or an original song or an idea for a game. It can really be anything you have found effective in getting truth in kids. Feel free to include a photo, but it’s not required. 

All entries must be posted or submitted by December 5th at 11:00 pm. CST. 

The winning entry will receive the entire 5 item HOPE set just in time for gift-giving! You can see that here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/store#!/That-We-May-Have-Hope-5-Product-Bundle/p/605880179/category=0.

That bundle is a $60.00 value (but it’s really invaluable)! 

Have fun with this! (We have the most creative followers in the world!) 1…2…3…Go!

 

 

(photo credit:<a href=https://www.pngall.com/christmas-png/download/58831 target=”_blank”>Christmas Gift PNG Free Download</a>)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Winner #5: Debbie Deavours–This one’s most like the foot washing!

For the record, Debbie didn’t want to win. She didn’t really even send this to the right email address. She said “This was not even me! I just wanted to tell you about these amazing women who were doing this wonderful thing every week for so long!” But this one’s just so menial–so wonderfully generous and selfless. (Some of our West Huntsville women also did this for over thirty years. Their hearts grew three sizes in this wonderful ministry and they were already very large hearts for Him!) Here are her words:

This isn’t a story about service today, but past service. I know your service contest is about today, but I wanted to tell you about these three wonderful women from Northport church of Christ. A few years back, I attended on a weeknight a “Boggins for Cancer” group there. This group has been meeting for years making toboggans and throws for cancer patients. I began talking with a lady and she told me what she and two other ladies did on Fridays. They went to a nursing home and washed and fixed hair for ladies who couldn’t afford to pay $25 each week to get theirs done. I was astounded. They were not trained professionally. One lady had done it for over 16 years and the other 2 for over 13 years. They said they could use my help, so I volunteered for a year until Covid struck. We did as many as 13 ladies on Fridays. A challenge doesn’t even describe what took place and those ladies, two in their 70s and one in her late 60s had been doing it for all those years. The ladies paid for everything they used. As time passed, I learned they did so much more. They brought them clothes, books, magazines, snacks, and calendars.  One Friday, the three went on a beach trip with the church group. I knew how disappointed my new friends at the nursing home would be if someone didn’t come. They’d be lined up outside the tiny room waiting. I decided I’d try. I was able to do 8 ladies. Each had their own challenges. Some could lie back. Some could bend forward. Some wanted curlers, some wanted blow-dry. Some used special shampoo. All wanted to talk. Some we could understand. Others not so much. One we brought hair bows for and each week required a new one, because no one could find them. No one understands what those three wonderful women did for so many for so long, but God and me. And what I did was only for a brief time compared. I told my daughter, Peyton, “Your church at Northport doesn’t have a clue what these ladies do each week.” You know, the nursing home never recognized those ladies for all they did, but I’m sure all those smiles each Friday was recognition enough. 
In His love,
Debbie

And the Foot-washer knows about the hair-washers, too. In fact, he is the recipient of this great work, at times. “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me.”