God has really been helping me realize that I need to build my relationship with Him more and more each day so that I can be the best for Him. I understand why God has me here and I plan to do what He has called me to do. It's now the Christmas season so many people look at this as a time for family and friends to get together and share gifts. But we have failed to realize the real meaning of CHRISTmas and that is God sent His ONLY son down to earth with a purpose and we need to remember that if the day of Jesus' birth never happened we wouldn't have salvation or the promise and potential for a relationship with God.

Through people I'm learning a lot of things. One of the things I didn't realize until the youth pastor at my church brought it up is that we tend to look at Christmas as another regular holiday and that's wrong! During this holiday we need to recognize that without the special birth on this day we would be lost. I'm glad to say that I have many people in my life who are great examples of Christ Followers and they teach me a lot. One of my friends from college is learning great things about Jesus and little did he know I'm going through the same things he is going through, so by him telling me his problems and how he has dealt with them he is also helping me get through my junk.

One important question he asked me is " How do we shine in a room full of light bulbs?" Now to explain what he means; when we were growing up in the "projects" we could simply carry around a Bible and everyone would assume we were Christians or at least trying to be. That time has changed for us now. We are not always in the projects. Now, the people we are surrounding ourselves around are all Christians as well and its harder for people to see our light shining because everybody around us has a light as well. So now I'm asking you to think about this question, "How can you shine in a room full of light bulbs?"

-Lamoryae Mayo, Middle School Discipleship Leader