I had the pleasure of reviewing a pre-release copy of Megan’s Christmas Miracle. This book takes readers on a magical journey to the place of Jesus’s birth, Bethlehem.   Along the way  are enchanting stories that people are sure to relate to.

The story starts in New York, where Megan, part of a family of 5, has a special Christmas tradition…spending the Christmas holiday at a destination of the family’s choosing.  Each member of the family writes their dream destination on a piece of paper, and one lucky person has their destination chosen from a glass bowl each year.  From Los Angeles, to Paris, each child has a strong preference on where they would like to go this year.  Megan, the youngest of the children, chooses Israel, so she can see Jesus’s place of birth.

Needless to say, the other children in the family are not happy about this decision and try everything in their power to get the youngest family member to change her mind (and pick a more suitable, safe destination).  From giving their sister cold, saddened glances in the hallway, to placing newspaper clippings of violent current events in Israel, nothing seems to deter Megan from experiencing her dream of seeing the birthplace of Jesus.   When the time comes for the destination to be chosen, the lucky piece of paper that is drawn is Megan’s, and the family makes plans to travel to the Holy Land.

Once there, each member of the family experiences a magical, too good to be true experience.  For example, Megan’s older sister dreams of being a fashion designer, and she runs into her idol (a famous clothing designer).  What is Megan’s adventure?  Well, in short, she gets to experience the miracle of our Savior’s birth firsthand.  How you ask?  You’ll just have to read it and find out!

In conclusion, I highly recommend this entertaining book.  It is filled with interesting dialog, facts about the birth of Jesus, and life lessons.  With the Christmas season coming up, it is sure to be a welcome addition to your Christmas library.

This book will soon be available in our Christian bookstore.

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Several months ago, my wife and I went to visit my grandparents who live in the small rural town of Archbold, OH.  I didn’t have my Bible with me, so before church on Sunday morning, I asked if I could borrow my grandmother’s Living Paraphrase Bible.  This was a very popular Bible several decades ago.  Its predecessor, the NLT Bible (New Living) is the current choice of countless people around the world.

Before the service started, I opened the Bible to the first page of Genesis (written about 700 years after Abraham) and saw the following:

The Account of Creation

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters

And the Lord said "Let there be light."

After that first verse, the Lord utters the words that start it all… LET THERE BE LIGHT.   Before those words were uttered, darkness covered everything.  Suddenly, an explosion of light, and it was the end of the first “day”.  However, I noticed the footnotes symbol next to the word day, and saw that this translation mentioned that a day could also mean an “era of time”.

Many people may have already known this, but I didn’t realize that the Bible left room for interpretation when it came to how God started the Universe.  Throughout my entire life, I was taught that God created the heavens and the earth in seven days.  Seven sunrises.  Seven Sunsets.  This intrigued me greatly, being my fascination with the beginnings of creation.  From there, I did a little digging into the literal translation.

In Genesis, when there is talk of seven days (the Hebrew word is yom), there are three different kind of “days”.

1.  12 hours

2.  24 hours

3.  Long, Indefinite Period of Time

This was an epiphany.  Creation didn’t have to happen in 7 days. It could have happened very similarly to how the majority of scholars and scientists have believed for centuries (although not fully accepted until recently), that there was a big explosion (of pure LIGHT), that started a chain of events, fully orchestrated by our incredibly creative creator.

Isn’t that the important part?  To know that God was the creator of the heavens and the earth.  That he was behind it all?  That from his command, a chain of events was set into place, that are responsible for you.  From his words, life began.

That is what it’s all about.

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Several christian-book-review.com readers participated in the commenting section below the review.  This led to the sharing of the below story…

***

I would like to tell you about my dream.  It was awesome.  I don’t remember dreams, yet I remember this dream vividly.  In 1972, I accepted the Lord as my Savior.  But I didn’t understand that I needed to make Him Lord of my life as well.

In 1973, I had a dream I’ll never forget.  My mother and I were gossiping about something juicy.  I don’t remember now what it was, but we decided to part ways, and whoever found out the “secret” (for lack of a better way to put it) of what we were gossiping about would go back and tell the other.  I left, and suddenly I was in darkness.  But then I saw a bridge shaped in an arch, and a man was walking on it with his back to me.  He was tall, broad-shouldered, had shoulder-length brown hair, his hands were at his side but with palms facing forward, and he was speaking a language I didn’t understand. Somehow I knew He was Jesus and I wanted to follow Him.

An old image representing the journey to Heaven

I got down on my hands and knees and followed Him on the bridge.  And that’s when I noticed His feet weren’t even touching the bridge.   They were several inches above the bridge, and all I can say is He was Holy.  He spoke with the deepest, most authoritative voice I ever heard, and He would stop talking in that foreign language and say “Repent NOW.  Turn from your sin NOW.  Suddenly I became aware of an evil presence near the bridge. It was so terrifying I couldn’t even look at it, I could only look at it with my peripheral vision.  I believe now it was Satan.  He was shrouded in black and glared at me.  I felt that he wanted to devour me.

Suddenly there was a note on the bridge, with the “secret” to what my mother and I had been gossiping about.  I was tempted to leave Jesus; I wanted to go tell my mother and then come back.  I believe now that Satan put that note on the bridge to tempt me away from Jesus.  I started to lie to Jesus about why I wanted to leave for a minute, but then I realized I could never lie to Jesus.  So I said “Um, excuse me,  I have to go do something, but I’ll be right back.  And that’s when He turned around, and I gasped at His beauty and because there was an instant shock of recognition.  I thought,”Oh, It was YOU!”

Somehow, in my soul, even when I had been an atheist, I had always been aware of His presence, from even  the time I was conceived.  And now I was seeing His face, and His eyes were beautiful, large, deep blue and heavily fringed with eyelashes, and they shone with the deepest love and compassion I could ever imagine.  He knew every crummy, stinking thing I had ever done (and had yet to do), yet He loved me so much, it was like I was His only child.  And if I had been the only person who ever sinned, He would’ve come down to earth and died for me.  He asked me one simple question.

He said “Will you really?  Will you really be back? ”  I realized if I left the bridge I wouldn’t find my way back.  So I dropped the note between the slats of the bridge.  He turned back around and continued speaking in that foreign language.  Suddenly there was a protrusion in the bridge that I couldn’t climb over.  I was terrified of falling back into the hands of Satan. I was really struggling, trying to climb over the protrusion and I was very irritated.  I thought “He knows everything, why doesn’t He help me?”  At last I cried out “I’m falling!”  He turned around, knelt down, and said with the most compassionate, gently voice I could imagine, “Well then, I’ll help you,” and He held out His hand to me.   I looked into His eyes of love and took His hand.  But Jesus ,didn’t let go.  He kept pulling me up to the top of the bridge.  We were almost to the top of the arch of the bridge, when suddenly I was filled with the most wondrous sense that something beyond my imagination was waiting for me on the other side of the bridge.  I was overjoyed, but when we got to the top of the bridge, I woke up.  I sat up in bed and burst into tears. I said “NO!  I want to be with You!”  Suddenly, there in my room was His presence.  The same presence I had felt in the dream.  He surrounded me with His love and it felt like He was holding me. I thought “I’m going to go back to that dream.”  I laid my head back on the pillow and went back to sleep.   And of course I didn’t go back to the dream.

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