I’ve been living on the edge this Christmas season.

While I love the reason for the season and all the blessings associated with celebrating our savior’s birth, I must admit there have been some significant circle of life issues that had stopped me short of wanting to go ‘caroling on main street.’

In an attempt to get myself headed in a better direction as we round the corner for Christmas, I grabbed my camera Thursday morning and went for a December sunrise drive in the desert. Once again, a little Photo-remedy was just what the doctor ordered.

Recent rains have brought renewed life to our little slice of the Sonoran Desert. The barrel cacti were as plump as Jolly Old St. Nick and the arms of our beloved saguaros seemed to have renewed vigor as they stretched toward heaven.

My drive took me into the Tonto National Forest, just east of Carefree, before I basically hit a dead end at Bartlett Lake. The irony did not escape me. Two thousand years ago, Jesus came to us in the desert. He came to give us new life. He was born in the most humble of settings, but he became our living water.

This Christmas, I pray that we all recognize there are no dead ends with Christ. As he promised the woman at the well in the Fourth Chapter of John, “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

God bless and Merry Christmas!

– Greg