Christmas 2022
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:7-8
Christmas is a season each year we take to slow down, spend time with loved ones and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. One of the great miracles of Christ’s birth in the New Testament of the Bible are the many foreshadowing stories and events of His birth (and death) centuries prior in the Old Testament. These historical foreshadowings help reinforce the divine nature of Jesus’ life and simultaneously illustrate how the Bible can be trusted as the living word of God.
Ultimately Christ’s birth, death and resurrection are the perfect display of God’s love for us. Because of this love we have the hope of eternal salvation. I truly think it’s important to keep God’s love and Jesus’ servant leadership at the base of our decision making as we continue to cultivate our company.
As we celebrate Christmas and wrap up the year we also have time to reflect on our team’s success stories from 2022. We serviced our customers in our existing markets at a very high level and continue to earn more of their business into the New Year. Many of our facilities were able to break and set new records. We opened a new facility servicing Charleston, SC as well as Savannah, GA to advance our continued growth in the Southeast. We opened our first location in the state of Virginia with our new facility servicing the Richmond market.
The end of 2022 also marks our entrance into a brand new region of the country for Contract Lumber - the Southwest. We finalized details on our new facility in Texas to service the Houston market which capped the year off in a big way. Texas is an exciting market that will receive our high level of customer service with open arms and fuel our growth in that region of the country for years to come.
It goes without saying that this is a very exciting time at Contract Lumber - our combined successes and subsequent growth create new opportunities for everyone on the team. One of the big drivers behind our mission of growth is the ability to increase opportunities, create fulfilling work, and enable careers that have a strong balance with family life. A key benchmark of success for our company is nurturing a work life where love is at the center - love of service, love of our customers, love of our teammates and their families.
When we examine the story of Christmas and the life of Christ it is apparent that God did all that He did because of His great love for us. God is love and that drove His mission.
As we continue to grow our business together please don’t hesitate to reach out if you see areas where we can be loving our fellow employees and customers in a better way. I want to wish everyone a great Christmas and holiday season - I’m looking forward to a great 2023 together!
Jim Bieser
“The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable.”