Children's sermon:

Why do we relate candy so much to love? On Valentine's Day, what do we give out? Candy, don't

we? If you care about somebody, you give them candy, like Hershey Kisses. Hershey Candy Kisses. Ever

heard of a Hershey candy kiss? No? Often we associate candy with affection and love. Why do you

think that is? What is it about candy that reminds us of love? How about this. It melts when we hold it.

Certainly chocolate does. When you hold somebody, sometimes they melt in your arms. Ever had somebody

do that? I did once and I married her. They're sweet, right? Candy is sweet. Tastes good. Makes

you feel good. Certainly does all of that. There is something else that's a symbol of love.

On my particular Hershey's Kiss you can see red stripes on there. They are kind of like candy

canes. They have red stripes. The church uses red stripes as well as a symbol of love, because Jesus is

not only just about sweetness and goodness and wonderful times, Jesus also reminds us that love

requires sacrifice. Sometimes a price has to be paid. And so the stripes reminds us that love also is about

surrendering and giving when we don't want to necessarily do that. Like maybe you sacrificed this

morning because you picked up your clothes. Or maybe you sacrificed yesterday when you helped your mother

around the house. Or maybe you sacrificed when you gave the last bowl of ice cream to somebody. Ever do

that at home? That doesn't happen in our house either. In fact, between Mary and I, it's a fight.

But anyway, sacrifice is about what we give up because we love somebody. So I'm going to give my

Hershey's Kisses to my Mary, and as she enjoys them and as she tastes the goodness and sweetness of them,

I'm going to enjoy them with her as well, because it's about what we do for others because we love them. And

we remember that Jesus died for us because he loved us. Gracious Lord, we give you thanks today for all

the many blessings we've received, for all the things that make us joyful and happy, but Lord, we also

remember the sacrifices that you have made on our behalf, and the times when you have weeped, the times

you have suffered, and we thank you as well. Bless us today. Help us to remember those sacrifices that

others have made. Help us to do that for others. We thank you for the special people in our lives, for

moms, dads, grandparents, teachers, and friends in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Season Of Miracles

We're about to enter theseason that is often called the time of excitement,

the season of miracles. Even the season of wonder. In fact, this Thursday the first miracle will occur.

Thursday, families from all over this country will gather together around the table and they'll share in

wonderful meals together and the miracle will be they will be able to do that and the phone won't ring. The

season of miracles and wonder, the time of Thanksgiving it is, isn't it? Remember the magic

words that you always shared with your children and maybe these are the words that your mother shared with

you. Remember the magic words? Remember what they were? Please and thank you. I bet our children got

tired of hearing that. Every time we shoo them out the door was be good and remember the magic words.

That's what Thanksgiving is about, isn't it? Remember to be thankful. And we pass that on to our children

by encouraging them to say please and thank you. I can remember when our children were small. They were

playing out in the back yard and I was leaning against the fence talking with a neighbor and he said

something to me and I didn't hear it because the kids were doing something they weren't supposed to be

doing, so I shouted to them: "Would you please stop that? "And then they'd quit and I'd say thank you.

And he looked at me and he says, why are you thanking

your kids for behaving? They are supposed to do that. I said, I'm trying to practice what I preach." So

it's all about trying to create a will of thankfulness. Our morning's scripture point comes

from Deuteronomy. How many times do we read that as Christians and all we hear is thou shalt not? We see

it as a list of demands that a dictator puts upon his subjects or we see it as a list of guidelines that

restrict us, confine us, to where we can't have any fun. Or we look at it as just simply scolding almost

upon God's part. But all of that is very far from the truth. Because when we think of the 10 Commandments,

we think of them as an entity by themselves and we forget so much about what happened before then. This

morning's reading gives us a sample of that. Moses says remember what God has done for us. That's the

first part of that speech when he delivers the 10 Commandments. Remember what God has done for us. And

so these 10 Commandments are not edicts, but they are ways that God has given us to express our

thankfulness, to express our gratitude, because God has first acted and done for us. In fact, that's the

formula that I would suggest the 10 Commandments are all about, it's about God's action and our

thankfulness equals that praise that is delivered in

the Commandments. That happiness, that joy. And so I would say that today's scripture

lesson, instead of creating a will of thankfulness, God has created the 10 Commandments to develop a heart

of thankfulness. There is a difference there. A will of thankfulness just means that you have an attitude

and a determination. But a heart of thankfulness is something completely different. A heart of

thankfulness is filled with joy and celebration and gratitude and it creates a different type of life. It

creates a life that's full and rich. To show you what I mean, I'm going to share

with you a story, my story, or our story. You know, this is not the recession we've been through. In a

previous life, I used to be a construction worker. If you worked construction in the mid west in the 1980's,

you were hungry because the recession at the end of the 70's and going into the 80's didn't really take

the construction industry by storm until about mid 80s. The 1980's. And all of a sudden, all

construction ceased. See we finished the projects we were doing but nothing got started. And it takes a

while to start building again. You have to get the plans, you have to develop the funding and all of

that. So for about five years there, we were 6

scratching the dirt to try to find something to do. Our children were little then. Those were tough times

for us. I can remember times when I would work three or four weeks for a contractor, then be laid off for

three months and then work maybe another three or four weeks and then be laid off again. And we had at that

time made a decision as a family that Chris would stay home with the children because we wanted somebody to

be home with them and that I would work. And now all that was turned upside down because I couldn't find

work. At first we started taking children in for day care, and those children, some of them, we got new

children every two weeks. We would have them for two weeks in our home and then when they got paid, they

wouldn't show up on Monday to pay us, right? And so we had these children kind of circulating through the

house with ours. And then Chris also agreed to work. She said she would go out to work. And so she found a

job working in a nursing home as an aide, second shift. And we only had one car. So I would load the

babies up in the car -- this is in the dead of winter -- I would go warm up the car first to get it

nice and warm, then load the babies in the car and take her to work because the nursing home was in a

violent part of town. And then at 11 o'clock at night

I would have to warm the car up again, load the babies in the car, go pick her up and bring her home. And I

did this every day. Then I would get up with her in the morning sometimes, sometimes she would. We would

share that because the kids were coming -- remember the day care -- and we tried to do what we could and I

would pick up odd jobs here and there to try to do whatever we could to scratch because I don't know how

unemployment is here in Maryland -- I have not had the experience of being a recipient of that -- but I can

tell you in Illinois, It ain't worth going. It's terrible. So there was nothing there for us. We were

lucky if we could buy a week's worth of groceries with what we got.

The funny story during that time, though, is concerning my wife. My wife grew up with no men in

the household. Just her and her mother and her sisters. When she was born, her oldest brother was 18

and in the military. So when we got married, she wasn't used to a man around the house or anything.

Anyway, she started working in this nursing home and that evening they came to her and handed her an

electric razor and said, here, you need to give all the guys a shave. And she took it and walked out in

the hallway and looked at it, said, well, how does

this thing work? She messed with it a little bit, pushed this little button and this blade was outside

you know. Unbeknownst to her, they were the sideburns trimmer guides. She thought, owe, that's how I use

it. So she turned it on and tried to shave them with that, with that sideburn trimmer, and she said, I

never saw old men move so fast. She said she couldn't catch them anywhere.

Anyway, that could have been a tough time and we could cry and wine about it and we could be

anxious about it again as our country goes back into another recession, but, you know, when I talk about

those times with Mandy and with friends, I don't talk about the struggles we had, instead I talk about how

there were some blessings in the midst of all of that. I tell them about how the blessing was that that was

one of those opportunities when Chris stood up to the plate, so to speak, and went to work. She didn't have

to. I didn't beg her to. She volunteered. And even though I knew she was on my side, it was the way she

chose to show it, so I could see it and know I wasn't in this alone.

In all those times when I loaded the kids up in the car and picked her up and took her, those were

neat times, because that's when my son learned how to

say the a,b, cs. We would sit in the car waiting for Chris to come out and we would practice singing those

a,b c's and all those other children's songs. And I still remember that to this day.

And then all those other things that went with it, too. The fact that I discovered what it

meant to spend the whole evening with only little kids and hunger for adult language. I learned to

appreciate her staying home a lot more. And the fact that even though we were scraping to get by, we were

together and we had our health and all of that was just wonderful. We spent more time together because

we couldn't afford to go out. We couldn't afford to drive anywhere. Gas prices were high then, too. They

were up over a dollar a gallon. Can you believe it? So what I want to suggest for us as Thursday

comes, as we have all the worries of our world, let us take a lesson from what God instructs us to do to make

our lives rich and full of joy and happiness and that is to remember and be thankful. Remember what God has

done and is doing in our lives and then be thankful. It's that time when we can tell those stories. When

you sit down to that meal. Don't do it before you eat because nobody is going to listen to you. They will

be too hungry, but after you eat, before dessert comes

out, you always want that little bit of time to let your thoughts settle, tell the stories of

thankfulness. Share the stories about how you've been blessed in your life. Remember, and be thankful. And

it will be a joyous day. Because I know God will honor it and bless you for it. God be with you, amen.