Can I ask for your prayers? Christmas is an emotional time of the year for me. One of the gals in my Bible Study pinpointed exactly how I feel about this time of year. She said she wants to feel joyful and celebrate with friends and family, but it's exhausting. Another gal said how the holidays just never live up to your expectations, and we always put so much pressure on ourselves! Anyone with me?
Many of you can relate to the stress of finding that perfect gift in a store that is not fully stocked stuffed with a million people who all must be vying for the same gift you are looking for because it is nowhere to be found in a 50 mile radius. Or fixing that perfect Christmas dinner while having a perfectly clean house for the 20 people, including your mother-in-law (dun dun dun), who will be there for Christmas Day. Oh, and 5 more people RSVP'd, last minute. Yikes! I'm exhausting just reading those sentences!
Somehow Christmas gets lost in the crowded shopping, frustrating family pictures, never ending Santa lines, snow vacationing, house decorating both inside and out, endless amounts of baking, constant cleaning, and relative visiting that somewhere in there we lost sight of Christmas. I'm not talking about the exhausting, please-be-done-with-this-holiday beckoning, just going through the emotions that so many of us feel.
I'm talking about the quiet night, the holy night, the joyous rejoicing, the gift giving that outweighs them all, the mother mild who held a tiny child that changed the whole world. We need a Christmas like the first Christmas. Back before commercialism took over this precious time of year. Back when giving gifts was better than receiving. Back when communities gathered and families celebrated and life actually paused. We as a society need a reminder of why we have Christmas. No wonder we are stressed! We've let the commercialized holiday overtake the Christ-centered Christmas.
So will you pray for me as I recenter my holiday back to Christ-mas? And maybe do some soul-searching yourself? Can you honestly say your focus is in the right place? I know mine is not. I'm not saying this will make your Christmas less stressful. You will still probably have relatives, maybe even crazy ones, invade your space. But maybe instead of getting down you can remember how one silent night a baby changed the world, and even though Christmas is hard for me, maybe this will be the reminder I need to rejoice when the crowds are thick around me or Aunt Ida will not chew with her mouth closed or a family member loathes the gift I spent hours crafting.
Because Christmas needs to be less commercialized, less about what I can get out of it, and more Christ-centered. Hopefully that understanding will generate excitement that will give me the energy to not just make it through the holiday season, but to come out of it with a smile proclaiming to the New Year, 'Bring it, cuz this girl's recentered her focus on Christ-mas, and I'm not going to let anything get me down.'
"I Need a Silent Night" by Amy Grant
