Paul's Passing Thoughts

The Dohse’s had a wonderful Christmas celebration yesterday. The siblings from both sides of the family gathered for Susan’s wonderful cooking, fellowship, and exchanging of gifts. For me, each Christmas has more joy as the balm of time and God’s word heals from the year that New Calvinists ripped my family apart in the name of the murdering mystic despot, John Calvin, their hero and their god. But of course, they are guiltless of such man-worship because, “We don’t agree with everything he taught.” And of course, you aren’t allowed to comment on Calvin unless you have read every word of his endless droning. Never in the history of the world have so many trees been sacrificed for a worthless cause.

Well, things are good for me now. The emotional pain that seized my soul during the first Christmas that I was separated from my family has since passed. A major factor in the healing was a wonderful gift from God named Susan who came while those who truly love me stood watch for my soul. Twenty-four years of our quirky season traditions were gone; things uniquely Dohse like pizza for Thanksgiving dinner—the memories thrown away like the morning trash for the sake of elder self-importance in the name of their god. Without a thought for the pain they have inflicted on a mass of souls, in the season midst, these brute beasts and their minions rejoice in their own plush “Christian” suburbia with their consciences long ago buried under the backyard swimming pool. Their evil road is paved by those who “move on” with their lives.

And this Christmas season, though it is well with my soul, I know that there are many like I was on that first Christmas. And if you are one such person, my thoughts and prayers are with you. I will not push this reality in the background. So, tomorrow, amidst the joy of our next gathering among several more between now and the first day of the New Year, Susan and I will have a time of prayer for you. The losses suffered by the “unadjusted gospel,” and the “scandalous gospel,” and the “underestimated gospel,” and the “resurgence” very in kind, and I will remember each as I know them.

And I so love the lovers of Truth. With all of my heart I love them. As we learn Christ, we put Him on. It is a joy and knowledge of righteousness that we could have never known lest He revealed it to us. We labor to put it on with all of our strength, mind and soul without boasting—because it is the knowledge of the Father’s righteousness—not our own. And the privilege was bought with the blood of Christ for His desire to call us brothers.

Regardless of your loss dear friend, this awesome privilege still remains. And among my prayers for you, I will pray that Christ gives you the strength to focus on the joy that awaits you in the midst of this valley.

With all love this holiday season,

paul