Daily Advent Devotion for December 15th - Brenda Clark

Family Tree

By Brenda Clark

Family Tree...that phrase conjures up at least two different memories.

I don’t remember anyone ever going with my dad to select a Christmas Tree. I only remember him coming home with one. I checked with my six siblings and they don’t remember going with dad either. And in fact, the youngest of the family said they got an artificial tree when she was the only one left at home!

I do remember it being a family affair to decorate the tree: with glass bulbs, electric lights (the kind that if one light goes out, the whole string goes out (I’m telling my age…)), and that silver tinsel!

But my two favorite memories about the Christmas Tree were:

• The whole family gathering around the Tree on Christmas Eve and singing Christmas Carols from a booklet that our Insurance Company had printed.  I still have some of those booklets!
• When friends and relatives came to visit we would light the tree (that was the only time we lit the tree) and my mom would bring out a platter of an assortment of home baked cookies!

The other memory about "Family Tree" is the fact that my mom was majorly into genealogy. Thankfully, she had interviewed ancestors when she was young, typed them up, and then shared them with future generations. My sister-in-law transcribed them into a word document complete with charts and copies of photos and printed them. When relatives went on vacations, they visited places mentioned in the genealogy. What a blessing it is to know my heritage!

It's similar to how the Bible tells of Jesus’ heritage. Thankfully, his ancestors wrote down the stories to share them with future generations. And as in most families – if we are honest – there were both positive and negative role models. In the Book of Matthew, Chapter 1, we find the genealogy traced through Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus. Here we see the names of several women: Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba. To be fair, women were treated as property in those days. These women got creative in dealing with the way they were unfairly treated.  On the other side of the family, we meet Zechariah and Elizabeth who were very godly people and had a huge influence on Mary, the birth mother of Jesus. What a blessing it is to know Jesus’ heritage!