This Friday I’m linking up with Kate Motaung at Five Minute Friday. We write for 5 minutes and publish! Check out other great stories all on the prompt: Season.
It’s the Christmas season. It’s joyful. It’s love-filled. It’s about giving and yes, let’s be honest, it’s about getting. It’s about traditional songs and snowflakes and bells and bows. It’s about glitter and laughter, choir concerts and children’s skits. It’s about doing and being and running like crazy. It’s about chaos and disrupted schedules and the stress of money on already tight budgets. It’s about nostalgia of Christmas’s past and missing those who are no longer here to help celebrate. It’s about parties and baking and required business appearances. It’s about ice and traffic jams, cold and the rush of getting presents on time. It’s about wrapping gifts in disguise and about disguising your real feelings of sadness or loneliness. It’s about bringing others joy and hoping they’ll bring joy to you.
That paragraph really changed directions, right? Culture has added stress to a simple celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. We’ve made it about doing and being and running like crazy. It’s all done with the absolute best of intentions, but we get stressed out. That’s on us.
That wasn’t His plan.
He came to bring us love. To bring us peace. To bring us joy. To allow us to relax in the arms of His salvation and remember that the King of the Universe chose to be born to the smell of manure and the poke of hay bales so that we could relax in His presence. It’s about God changing form for eternity so that we could be with Him for that same eternity. It’s about a gift so big, so giant, so incredible, that nothing else matters.
If money is tight: Buy less. God already paid the price.
If you are stressed: Breathe deep of the smell of manure, yes, do it. Remind yourself of the peace that comes from worshiping a King in a manger.
If you are tired. Relax and close your eyes, picturing the night sky alive with the joyful songs of angels. Angels who still cannot comprehend the awesomeness of God’s love.
If you are lonely: Wrap up in a blanket and feel the arms of the One who gave up EVERYTHING for YOU. So that you would never be alone again, but rather be with Him for always.
If you’re not creative, can’t never think of what to buy or can’t cook: Let it go. The light of His love shining through you is worth more than anything you can do or be. Let Him take over and watch what Grace can accomplish.
If you are praying in anguish for healing or hurt: pause and remember that the baby in the manger grew to be a man poked, prodded and hanged for us. God knows hurt, and He loves your baby, or your spouse, or your grandpa, even more than you do.
It’s the Christmas season. It’s joyful. It’s love-filled. It’s about a gift. Not ours. His.
I pray that His gift makes all the difference for you this holiday season.
