have well & truly zipped by! And going by previous unemployment periods that will certainly be my experience of the days ahead.
Next January, I start a course at our local college. 'Men in Care' is one evening a week for 20 weeks and is an initiative to encourage more men to enter the care sector. Childcare work will be a part of the course and local employers will be encouraged to consider taking more men into this type of work.
I did my regular 'signing on' at the Job Centre on Monday and showed them the diary that you have to keep which records how you go about looking for work. Because of the holiday period, over Christmas and the New Year, I don't have to sign on again until 15 January. God willing, by that time, I will have some positive news on the job front.
So Christmas is just a few days away now. I have to admit that as an adult I have generally had an ambivalent attitude towards this time of the year. Up until 1982, whilst knowing that church folk celebrated the birth of Jesus at this time of the year, it was a time to have parties, give & receive presents and generally have a good time with family & friends. After 1982 of course Christmas has taken on a whole new meaning.
Of course there is a lot of disagreement amongst Christian Believers about wether we should even celebrate the birth of Christ because there is no Biblical reference/instruction to celebrate Christ's birth. Matthew's Gospel tells us that the wise men came to worship Christ - Matthew 2 v 2 - Strong's Concordance tells me that 'worship' in this verse means to 'prostrate oneself in homage' - 'do reverence to, adore'. Luke 2 v 10 tells us that the angel brought "good tidings of great joy" to the shepherds and "which shall be to all the people.".
In Luke 2 v 20 we have, "And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.". So there would seem to have been some sort of 'celebration' of joy linked with praising God in a reverential way.
Of course with Christmas being brought in by Constantine, at the same time of the year as a pagan festival, everything has got very blurry. HOWEVER, it is up to Christian believers to stand up and be counted at this time of the year. As a purely family time I love Christmas and with a new grandson 'on the block' we are going to have a lovely time as a family. But as a Christian I will take every opportunity to remind people why we have Christmas. I will glorify and praise God with all my heart; I will have great joy because Jesus came into the world - John 12 v46 - 47: "I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.". Jesus tells us here that he came to save the world and in the subsequent verses he tells us that God , his father, will judge the world.
So I will glorify and praise God, for the birth of Jesus, with joy in my heart and praises to God on my lips. I will be doing this with my fellow believers in Pinetree House on Sunday evening and on Monday morning. I will spend time with my family and I will give thanks to God for His wonderful gift.
In other news: Grandson Will has chicken-pox. Nana Kriss saw him today and Will being Will still greeted her with his lovely smile and gurgles despite the fact that he was obviously struggling with the rash & spots. I remember when I had shingles a few years ago - YEUK - not nice!
Ryanair have started a service from Inverness to Liverpool and son D and myself are booked to fly down over a weekend in January to see Everton play at home to Reading. The return airfare is a ridicuously low cost and, with hopefully being able to stay overnight with friends, not only will we not have a return road trip of 16 hours, we will not have a huge fuel [gas] cost. It will be good to be at a live game again - we have not been since March.
So that's it for now - time for bed said Zebedee.
