The Lily Letters

The Inconvenience of Christmas by Meghan Williams As a society, we love Christmas. The lights, the decorations, the joy, the merriment, family and friends. We have expectations of a perfect day. But many times Christmas can be plagued with sorrow, suffering, stress, and overall inconvenience. If that's you, you're in good company. The first Christmas was full of inconvenience. It started with a God who had been silent for 400 years that came to a young girl, no older than 15 or 16 years old, and asked her to do the unimaginable. Being pregnant outside of wedlock, even more so in that time, would have ostracized her from her community and subjected her to constant judgment. We don't know how her parents reacted, but we do know she spent a few months with an out of town cousin, perhaps revealing she was sent away due to her condition. Once she was far along in her pregnancy, she wasn't even able to stay with family. She had to travel 90 miles, probably a week...

Staying Focused on God Emily Peedin Bible Readings: Philippians 4:6, 1 Peter 5:6-7, Matthew 6:34, and Matthew 11:28 If there is one thing I can distinctly remember from my four years in undergrad, it is just how fast the fall semester seemed to fly by after midterms. Within the blink of an eye, we had Halloween, Fall Break, Thanksgiving, finals, and Christmas before I could even register what was going on. It truly felt like, no matter how hard I wanted things to slow down a bit, someone else’s foot was on the gas, and I could seemingly never catch up. That being said, I did cherish my fall semesters in undergrad– arguably so much more so than my spring semesters. Something about the weather cooling down, sports seasons heating up, and my favorite holidays approaching made the semester feel a lot faster and more bearable to get through. That certainly wasn’t the case for everyone else I knew, though. As wonderful as the fall and winter seasons were to me, I would be remiss if I did...