The Real Meaning......

New Book Wednesday

Wow it's T-2.5 and counting until Christmas. How ironic that the holiday falls on a Friday, so there won't be a "black Friday" but a Super Saturday. I digress. Today is New Book Wednesday. I haven't done this in a long time, although I have been reading through a lot of books. I found this book by accident. A guilty pleasure of mine is surfing Youtube for good Christian based music. I found an artist named  Nichole Nordeman, and she had a really sweet voice. She sang her own faith inspired songs and standards. She reminded me of Jewel, she even looks like her. One of her Youtube videos was a "Lyric" video called "Real".  Here are the first verses:

Frozen statues in the cold
Washed in moonlight, blue and gold
Mary's babe in plastic hay
Quiet wonder on her face
Mary you look so serene
Far too pretty, much too clean
We might think we know you well
But what stories would you tell?
Of all the dirt and dust and shame
Everybody burning labour pain

And as I turn to walk away
I hear you say
I am real
Don't turn me into memory or myth
Let me be real
And I'll show you what it means to love like this
To be real

And as I listened to her voice and the lyrics, my heart was touched. I wondered what or who was she singing about and as I listened to the rest of the song, I realized that  she was singing about those Nativity statutes that inevitably spring up every Christmas Most people have a love-hate relationship with them, not so much what they represent. I remember a few years back, when a local church had the Baby Jesus stolen out of it's manger every year, no matter what they did to secure him in. I heard once that they put a real baby in it one year, but no takers. So I listened to this song and heard a true story of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. We think we know who they are, and we hope we know who Jesus is. Their "real" stories of life and growing up, and heartache, etc are buried or even concealed in the thousands of years gone by. It is no wonder that the prophet Isaiah noted that Mary would be a "sign" for us.

Prophecies: Seven hundred years before she was born, Mary was prophesied to be the mother of Christ. Isaiah wrote, “The Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Alma the Younger also identified Mary as the Savior’s mother about 80 years before Jesus’s birth and halfway across the world from Isaiah: “He shall be born of Mary, … she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God” (Alma 7:10).

Fulfillment: Eight decades later, the angel Gabriel appeared “to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, … and the virgin’s name was Mary” (Luke 1:27). Mary was the mother of Jesus, who was the Son of God.

So I was obsessed, I found that I couldn't buy a CD of this song and it was inspired by a book called  

"A Walk One Winter Night by Al Andrews"

But drats, the book was out of print..... I scoured Amazon.com and found a few copies. There is a beautiful back story. I wanted to share this with you (my 6 loyal readers), this is my gift to you. I found a You-tube of the author reading this book. Please take a few minutes and listen and you won't be disappointed. Jesus, Mary and Joseph are real, and they lived. 

A Bonus y'all, Nichole Nordeman singing her song "REAL"
Merry Christmas y'all  



Nichole Nordeman - Real (Lyric Video)