Dear Doves,
      The Season of Advent and Hanukkah are days of remembrance of days of old and long ago events. But these are days to look forward, as well. We have entered into spiritually vibrant days of anticipation, eagerness, expectancy, and rejoicing! Advent links The First Coming, The Blessed Hope, and The Second Coming. Hanukkah links the restoration of the Temple, restoration of animal sacrifices and the resuming of Torah commanded living as led by the mitzvoh, the 613 commandments in the Torah, within the period of about 160 years until The First Advent (The First Coming). This was 8 generations, a Noah number, of 20 years each. Men of the 12 tribes could go to war at age 20, before this age they married young at 12-14 and had their children during those years to age 20. Therefore, if they were killed in battle as young as age 20, they had already married and provided the children of the next generation. They could live much longer, I am using the age of 20 as a reproductive generational marker. Those 160 years kept building, year by year, to a fever pitch of passionate intensity for many. Think of the fervor we read about in the accounts in the Gospels about the profound longing for the arrival of the Messiah of Israel, the one to save, to deliver, to redeem, to set free. Who would it be? Might it be the young rabbi from the Galilee? "Who do the people say I am?" Might we be in the last days of The Age of Grace, before the arrival and rise to power of the Beast, the antichrist, the anti Messiah, the false savior? Before the lawless one rises to power, the Restrainer must depart away. The bride/body of Messiah/Christ must be taken away by He who shall deliver us. These are days to consider THE TRUE SAVIOR or the son of perdition. Come quickly, Lord...
 
With Love and Shalom,
Jean