Merry Christmas

There will not be a Johns Family Christmas Card or Letter this year. So, if you were wondering where yours has been, know that you have not been forgotten!

The Lord has been so kind to bless us with many wonderful friends and family members. Please know that we think of each of you often, especially during the holiday season. May your family experience the true joy of this wonderful season. Here is a favorite poem of ours for you to enjoy.

O The Gift of Gifts

Source of all good, What shall I render to thee for the gift of gifts, thine own dear Son, begotten, not created, my redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute, his self-emptying incomprehensible, his infinity of love, beyond the heart’s grasp. Herein is wonder of wonders: he came below to raise me above, was born like me that I might become like him. Herein is love: when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace, to raise me to himself. Herein is power: when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart he united them in indissoluble unity, the uncreate and the created. Herein is wisdom: when I was undone, with no will to return to him, and no intellect to devise recovery, he came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost, as man to die my death, to shed satisfying blood on my behalf, to work out a perfect righteousness for me. O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds, and enlarge my mind; let me hear good tidings of great joy, and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore, my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose, my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father; place me with ox, ass, camel, goat, to look with them upon my redeemer’s face, and in him account myself delivered from sin; let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child to my heart, embrace him with undying faith, exulting that he is mine and I am his. In him thou hast given me so much that heaven can give no more.

-The Valley of Vision