Afternoon PPN Families,

When I was younger, it wouldn’t be uncommon for me to come home from school and find my Grandma knitting or half way through a puzzle in one of her favourite magazines. Her usual puzzle of choice was either a crossword or a word search. I would then drop my school bag and run over to aid her in her mighty search of words, not that I was much help as many of them were beyond my reading level.

She would tell me how important it was to do puzzles like this as it was a sort of exercise for your brain - and her brain was amazing and quite sharp even till her age of 92. Now I’m not entirely sure if doing crosswords or a sudoku a day will keep the forgetfulness away, but I do know of one Word search that will benefit not only your mind but your whole life and the lives of those around you.

John 1 begins with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” But what was this Word? In verse 14 it becomes a bit clearer, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

In this life it seems that we are constantly in search of something, acceptance, love, happiness. Whatever it may be, this world offers it in short or small supply. But the bible says to “Search for the Lord and for His strength; continually seek Him.” Psalms 105:4. Jesus is the living word, He came to show us how to actively live a life in service of God and to share the love God gives to all around us. In the New King James Bible there are 770,430 words, that’s a lot of words and on average people speak 6000-7000 words a day. How much of our words are used to encourage or to comfort? God uses the words in the bible to inspire and teach us how to treat one another and to prepare for Jesus’ return.

Just how my Grandma thought it was important to do puzzles, reading the bible helps to exercise and strengthen our understanding of God and His plan for our lives.

I’ve made a little word search to highlight just a couple things the bible, God’s Word, can offer us if we just search and try Him.

Play this puzzle online https://thewordsearch.com/puzzle/6750926/

Hope you enjoy the puzzle and the rest of this week,

Blessings,

Pr Andy.