<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/81bdae55-99e9-405d-beed-b2e04c8a4203/C27135B1-7CC6-4D2B-811F-127EC6B26603/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/Christmas-Alone.html" href="http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/Christmas-Alone.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.creighton.edu</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/Christmas-Alone.html"><FONT color="#000000">Many of us celebrate Christmas alone. This may be the first time for us, or an odd set of circumstances this year, or an every year thing.</FONT></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/Christmas-Alone.html">For us who are alone, Christmas can be a great blessing. The solitude we have can offer us the grace to receive the gift of Christ's coming in a very special way. We may be tempted to be discouraged or quite down in our aloneness, but that really is a temptation. It is a temptation to turn our focus in on ourselves rather that to let ourselves be contemplative at the time of Christmas. To act against this temptation is to open ourselves to great graces these days.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/Christmas-Alone.html">The first grace we might have is time.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/Christmas-Alone.html">The second great grace we might be given is the ability to enter into relationships with these special persons in the story of our salvation.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/Christmas-Alone.html">Perhaps the greatest grace of our aloneness will be the gift of grateful surrender. </blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/C27135B1-7CC6-4D2B-811F-127EC6B26603/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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