A Mantle of White

So here's the repurposed "white" framed mirror...(nighttime)

                                            (daytime)

with some wintery "white" decorations....

I loved this little silvery church (an ornament, on sale 1/2 price), which reminded me of a church in Germany that I loved so much (that I took a picture of it & have it framed on a wall at home).

Though the church is about 6" tall, you can see the scale of the mirror in comparison... Huge!

But my favorite is the simple nativity I got last year.  The "white" wintery theme of the mantle fits in with this.  My heart was cold toward Jesus for so many years, while I went to church every Sunday & thought of myself as a pretty good person.  Yet, I did not have a relationship with God, only a "knowing about Him"
Eventually the simple story of the gospel made sense to me.  God did send His only Son to the world to be a human while still fully God.  He sent Him to pay the penalty for all my sins, to take the punishment I deserved, so that I could have a true relationship with God.  By taking the step of faith to believe in Jesus Christ, putting all my faith in Him alone, and choosing to believe what the Bible says, I became God's child.
It sounds so nice to say that we are all God's children.... but we are not.  In John 1:12    we are told that to those who believed in Christ, He (God) gave the right to be called children of God.  In a culture of "rights" it is sweet to know that I have a God-given right to be called God's child, but it is only because I believe in the saving grace of Jesus Christ and have given my life to Him.  What mercy on His part!  Though I want to live in obedience to Him, I no longer have to fear whether I'm doing everything alright enough to deserve to go to heaven.  No one ever has or ever will deserve to go to heaven by what they did or did not do.  What a relief His grace gives!