My friend,

Thank you so much for your very kind words and wishes and the time you have taken from your own life to write them in order to share your experience of this life with me. Whilst I am afraid I still haven't reached a point where I can say that my belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God is secure, I can promise you that my belief in, love for and confidence in my father is far from in doubt. I may have my doubts as to Jesus' position in life but I have no doubt about the truth in many of the teachings attributed to him and try as best as I can, failing often, to live up to them.

Unfortunately, I feel you're correct in your assessment of our current situation and have written before about the difficulty of attracting new men and women to this type of information. It's normally a thankless task and any appreciation is usually from other like minded individuals who already knew what you had to say in the first place. Every now and then, though, there is a comment from someone who is coming across the information for the first time though and that helps a little with staying positive but I definitely hear what your saying and feel the same frustrations as you, which I must admit I am not always good at dealing with. They say ignorance is bliss and while I don't agree, I can certainly see the attraction at times. The little I feel I do know only serves to confuse me even more and can be a burden at times which has a big effect on my life and relationships.

As I am not religious and see as you do the commercialism that has overtaken this time of year, I am not really a big fan of Christmas at all but my own view is that it is our way of setting aside some time to appreciate everyone and everything we are blessed to have in this world and I would also like to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know that I appreciate everything you have done for me, not just those things you have done for me personally, which is more than you know but also those things you do every day to make my world and my life better.

Thank you for your friendship, @creatr. I'm a better man for it. :)