Repurposed with Purpose

Every year at this time, we face a problem. What do we do with last year's half-used Advent Candles? At the beginning of this Advent, we had three purple candles and no pink one. What happened to the pink one; I do not know.  This morning, snowed in and bored, the three purple candles shouted in unison to me, "repurpose us!" My response was, "but how?" "Make a candle, " they called. So I did. Remembering how to make a candle challenged me. One attempt to melt a bowl of candles in another bowl of hot water jogged my memory. I decided to microwave them. The peace coffee cup served as my mold. I recorded the process for you all below.      How to Make Old Candles into New Ones                                                               ...

Tonight is the first night of Hannukah.  Hannukah is known by many names. It is referred to as the festival of the Dedication of the Temple in the scriptures (John 10:22). It's more commonly known as the Festival of Lights. In 164 BCE, Judah Maccabee, the priest, restored worship in the temple in Jerusalem. The Greeks placed false idols and even sacrificed a pig to Zeus on the altar. These actions desecrated the Temple. Yet, as the Maccabees took over Israel from the Greeks, they reinstituted true worship of God.   On that first night, there was only enough oil to keep the Menorah burning for one night. Yet God did a miracle, and the oil lasted for eight nights.  Thus, because Judah Maccabee was a strong military leader, Hannukah, became associated with the Messiah. The Messiah is God's leader who would liberate his people from oppression and set the world right. We Christians know that this Messiah is Jesus Christ. John 1:1-5 tells us that he is the light of the wor...

          Advent and Christmas are the seasons of gift-giving. As we make the Yarn Wrapped Gift Boxes, we recall God's greatest gift, his Son. Although it's hard to wrap our minds around it, the Eternal Son of God chose to become human for our sake (John 1:1-14). Thus he was born Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus didn't despise our humanity but decided to be born of a virgin (Phillippians 2:6-7). He is entirely God and fully human. We celebrate the incarnational mystery of God becoming a man because without the incarnation, there is no salvation from our sins. Without Jesus taking our human form, there is no crucifixion or resurrection. There is no Easter if there is no Christmas first.     Every time we wrap or unwrap a present and create a gift, we recall the gift of Jesus. The Father sent his Son into the world (John 3:17), and the Son chose to be here. Without the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, we would be lost in our sins, broken and undone. We wou...