A Fort Apache Playset, Mt. Olive Lutheran School in Bay City, a Christmas program in 1954 and John 3:16

It was a Christmas program at a small Wisconsin Synod Church on the westside of Bay City, Michigan and I had one verse to say.  My mother helped me learn John 3:16.  I shared it that night in the dimly lit Mt. Olive Lutheran Church and never forgot it.  I was eight years old and that verse has been firmly in my memory ever since.

As I get a whole lot older and I wake in the middle of the night, the verse comes to my mind.  I've taken it apart in my head hundreds of time.  I think about each word and what it means.  

I mention this because we are in the Christmas season and there's so little mention of Jesus.  Fewer and fewer people know or seem interested in Jesus and why he came to earth.  As our culture struggles and as the world vibrates with conflict and dissension, Jesus seems to have disappeared.  

He's still there.  I see that in John 3:16.  That Christmas program was probably one of the most important nights of my life.

And when my mother and I got home, I found a Fort Apache Playset under the Christmas tree.  It was all set up.  I loved it.  But, I never figured out how or who set it up.  My mom never told me.  Maybe, it was our dog Chummy.