Labor of Love

Hey Friends, 

Merry Christmas! This is Odie reporting in from the Ohio Beach Cottage. We are running around trying to tie up a few lose ends before the holidays next week. I enjoy the hustle and bustle of Christmas. 

This time of the year I also like to ponder the true reason for the season. Christmas is a day set aside to celebrate our Savior’s birth. I am blown away by the fact that Christ came to earth for us! You and I are the whole reason He left the splendor of Heaven. Jesus left royalty to be a common man. Wow, and to think that He gave up everything just for us! Ultimately Christ came to give us salvation. 

Mary and Joseph were Jesus’ earthly parents. They could not explain the events surrounding His arrival. They did not volunteer for the position, but they were chosen by God to care for His son. That was an amazing responsibility. I cannot comprehend everything that they endured during that time. Even Mary and Joseph probably wondered why us, what in the world is going on, or how do we explain this to others? Mary and Joseph are heroes of the faith that I admire!

This week I have been listening to a song entitled Labor of Love. It is a beautiful song! I love the way these lyrics take you right to Bethlehem 2000 years ago. 

My favorite version of the song was recorded by the Isaacs. It was featured on their 2010 Christmas project. Click here to visit the Isaacs online store.

My cousin Becky Isaacs Bowman sings awesome on this song. Her delivery of this message is incredible every time. I never tire of hearing her sing this song. 

Labor of Love was written by Andrew Peterson and published by Universal Music Publishing Group. You can find it on iTunes by clicking here. Also click here for a YouTube video of this great song. This link here takes you to a special video recorded outside of Bethlehem in 2014.

I will close with the song lyrics below. Please take a moment to listen to this song and reflect on the precious gift that the world was given on Christmas. Jesus was a special baby that changed our world forever!

Thank you for reading today. Merry Christmas to Everyone! I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Odie

Labor of Love

Verse 1

It was not a silent night

There was blood on the ground

You could hear a woman cry

In the alleyways that night

On the streets of David's town

And the stable was not clean

And the cobblestones were cold

Little Mary full of grace

With the tears upon her face

Had no mother's hand to hold

Chorus 

It was a labor of pain

It was a cold sky above

But for the girl on the ground in the dark

Every beat of her beautiful heart was a labor of love

Verse 2 

Noble Joseph by her side

Callused hands and weary eyes

There were no midwives to be found

On the streets of David's town

In the middle of the night

So he held her and he prayed

Shafts of moonlight on his face

For the baby in the womb

He was the maker of the moon

He was the author of the faith

That could make the mountains move

Chorus 

It was a labor of pain

It was a cold sky above

But for the girl on the ground in the dark

Every beat of her beautiful heart was a labor of love 

Little Mary full of grace

With the tears upon her face

It was a labor of love

Tag

It was not a silent night

On the streets of David's town

A Bunch of Activity Brings Us To Friday

Did you miss our Newsletter/Christmas card yesterday? You can see it here.

The week before Christmas is flying by and we have been flying with it. We went to hear the Millikins Monday night, attended our home church at Dryden Rd Tuesday night and I preached at Dodds Wednesday night.

We ate at Acapulco with the Millikin family on Monday. We ate at Acapulco with Bro. Jared Burris and his family, Bro. EJ Lamb and his family and Steve and Karen on Tuesday. We ate at Acapulco with Kelly Jo's parents on Thursday. We somehow missed Acapulco on Wednesday, but KJ prepared some Mexican food for supper before we went to church. Does that make up for the miss?

We only have this one picture of Reese with Odie, but that should be enough to prove the Bro. EJ Lamb and his family were there.

Look at the beautiful bunch of people!

We heard great preaching Tuesday night at Dryden Rd, but I only took one picture.

Kelly Jo and Odie snapped a few pictures at Dodds Wednesday night.

Projects 

Barn Door

One of the first things  I did when we purchased this property was dig the gravel out from under the big sliding doors on the front of the barn. I could barely open or shut them before I did that. Four years later it was time to do it again. We have spent a bunch of money on gravel since owning this place and at least $50 of it had washed under the door.😅

It is clean again now and the doors operate so much better. The end goal to so put overhead doors on the barn, but until then I need to keep these doors working.

Security System

We have had trouble with the house security system from day one. The base station could not retain its connection to wherever the signal goes in outer space. I asked the company several times about a base station with a different cell phone provider. That ended up being the problem.

Instead of a new base station, they sent a new circuit board. With the help of good directions, I changed it. The system now works perfectly. The next day I added a bunch of sensors to the system and now it is completed.

Cameras

Back in July Bro. Josh Clayton from Hodgenville, Kentucky came up and installed the camera system for Odie's house. We had prewired for it according to his directions and the purchased the system from his company. I wrote about that in a weekend post right before vacation.

We attempted to have the internet connected in August so that the cameras could be viewed remotely. That did not go so well. We had preinstalled an underground conduit for the internet cable, but discovered the conduit was damaged during the septic system installation. The cable could not be put through the conduit.

I dug down and found the damage, but left the repair to the septic guy. It took him a few weeks to get to it and by then we were long gone. Last Friday I had the internet company come out and do their part. I told you Monday about my successful effort to put two ends on a Cat 6 cable. All of that had to be completed so that we could get the cameras hooked up to view them remotely.

With the help of Josh Clayton again, we tackled that Thursday. He was able to do the work over the internet through my laptop and then he coached me how to set things up on our mobile devices. The house has cameras all around the exterior and a few inside cameras that can be turned off completely. They are all working perfectly!

That hits most of the highlights from our week. We have a big time planned for tonight. I guess I will tell you all about it on Monday. Thanks for reading.

If you are in our area and do not have a place to attend church, we will be at Anchor of Hope in Lebanon, Ohio Sunday morning and The Free Holiness Church of God in Sharonville, Ohio Sunday evening. We will probably sing a Christmas song or two before I preach a Christmas message. We would love to have you.

Davy

On The Road Again Newsletter Christmas 2018

Tuesday evening Kelly Jo rushed to the post office to mail the latest version of our On The Road Again newsletter. It is probably showing up in mailboxes across the country today and should certainly reach all of the recipients by this weekend. Because you are a faithful blog reader, you get to see it today.

This is our Christmas newsletter and also serves as the Christmas card from our family and from Boggs Family Ministries. We thought it was appropriate to take our Christmas picture in the beautiful home that was built for Odie. We are thankful that my sister Theresa was able to take a few moments to snap some pictures for us.

I would include pictures of her standing on top of the kitchen island to get the "right" picture, but I am afraid she might remove me from her Christmas list. I can not take a chance with that. Of course, I could text it to anyone that would like to see it.😁

Okay, Okay, you have twisted my arm hard enough. I must give the public what it desires.

Theresa said a good photographer does whatever it takes to get the picture!

Here is the link to the Boggs Family Ministries Christmas 2018 Newsletter. The link should open the newsletter in a nice readable PDF file, but I will add a picture of the newsletter too.

Thank you for joining us today. May God bless you all. 

Davy