After Christmas

Whether you're feeling relief or a let-down, we're now in that week between Christmas and New Year's Day. I've always thought of it as a kind of magical time, with only seven days of the old year left, and all the time pressures of gifts and Christmas deadlines over.  Supposedly it's the highest-ranking week of the year for colds.


So, if you're bundled up under the covers by the fire or blowing your nose and depressed, let's take a look at the future, after we're on the other side of this life.


Are you in a season of testing? Grief? How about financial desperation? There are all kinds of hard times, all kinds of tests, and we are sometimes less than gracious in reacting to them.  Yes, we all should be saintly and turn to the Lord instantly, but most of us have moments of failure. I once had a client tell me, "I was so vicious last week, I didn't know if I had PMS or rabies!"

Of course God calls us to live lives of obedience and love. But if, under the pressures and demands of the past few weeks, you've slipped a time or two, I'm simply reminding you that our wonderful God still loves you, and his plans for you are still in place.  Even if you snapped at someone you should not have, or felt less than charitable toward the relative who knows exactly the worst thing to say to you over the eggnog.


You may not feel like you're winning any awards for patience in your trials. What a blessing God promises a crown of life to those who love him, not only to the patient (who are going to be blessed).  You have a crown awaiting you, my friend. If you have asked Jesus to come into your life and take control of it, you are promised eternity with him.

As painful as whatever you're going through is, it will eventually ease, and your love will be crowned by our faithful, eternal God. He knows your heart and your suffering, and he promises that there will be far more on the other side of it. You have the full attention of the God of the universe for the rest of time.   


God blesses the people who patiently endure testing. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

James 1:12

God's gift to you

Right now, you are in the height of the Christmas parties, cookies, and chaos.  This present has to be wrapped. You still haven't bought something for that nephew. On and on it goes.


I used to work at my daughters' elementary school. The school secretary's Urgent box was always overflowing with papers. I was there one day at her desk, when another staffer happened to examine one of these documents. This supposedly urgent request had been sitting in the box for six months!


"Oh, yes," she said casually. "If you leave them there long enough, they aren't urgent anymore."


How many of our urgent activities can be let go for now so that we can spend a little time remembering that God gave us a gift of new life in Jesus Christ, which we are supposed to be celebrating at this time of year?  Take a few minutes right now, and thank him for giving you a fresh start with each new day that comes.


Take time with your loved ones, and I'm not talking about the TO DO list time. Play a game, get eyeball-to eyeball with them, have tea with an elderly relative who has been alone in the retirement home, do something that will count for eternity, not for the Urgent box, that will be forgotten in six months.


Our God has given abundantly to us. What we have in our power to give back are our selves and our time. Let us be careful how we invest them.


But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. The are reborn!

John 1:13a

The gift only you can give

One Christmas many years ago, when Nelda, my grandmother, was in her 80's, she shared a tender story from her childhood with me. I later found out that my father himself never  had never heard this fragment of family history, so I treasure it all the more.

Nelda told me about a Christmas when her parents were truly struggling financially, barely earning enough money to put food on the table for their little family and still have enough left to pay the rent of their apartment. That December, even the most humble Christmas tree would not be a consideration.

However, Mimi, Nelda's mother, had a plan to celebrate the best she could with her children. She pulled out her box of tree ornaments, and she hung them on the back of the sofa, as a substitute for a tree, bringing a bit of festivity into their small apartment. According to Nelda, Mimi never acted as if there were anything unusual about using the couch as a Christmas tree that year, which allowed her children to feel more normal about their circumstances.

I've often thought about Mimi's courage and dignity in the face of adversity and pain. She used the little she had to encourage her young children, rather than bemoaning what she didn't have. Certainly, Nelda never forgot it, telling me about it some 80 years after that Christmas.

If you're having a good day in the midst of this season, use it to lift someone else up. Spend your strength and hope on those who are hurting, who need the gift of your encouragement. You know how stressful Christmas can be for many people, so it won't be hard to find targets of opportunity. 

Understand that sometimes that means simply being with someone who needs your presence not your presents. Or be willing to sit and grieve in silence with someone who's spending the first Christmas without that person they loved. If this is your first Christmas without a loved one, you may be the best person to share that pain with another, because you know exactly what it feels like.

And when your account of strength and hope is overdrawn, God promises to raise up someone to provide for you. Ask our loving Lord to send someone to share with you this very day. God bless you, my friend.

Of course, I don't mean you should give so much that you suffer from having too little. I only mean that there should be some equality. Right now you have plenty and can help them. Then at some other time they can share with you when you need it. In this way, everyone's needs will be met.

2 Corinthians 8:13,14

What are you expecting today?

I have had so many different reactions to the Christmas season, or to other "special" seasons over the course of my life. From happy excitement to dread, and everything in between. Are the Holidays tough for you this year?  Have you lost someone dear to you and is that loss making all the reminders of years past especially painful? 

If so, you've noticed that the first set of holidays after the loss of someone you love will be the hardest. The first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, etc. The bigger the importance of the memory with that person (good or bad), the harder that day will be, so be pro-active in planning what you will do to keep yourself from being at the mercy of this day and this memory. Enlist your support team, and yes you have one. Call them in. NOW.

For the rest of you:

Years ago, I learned a valuable lesson from a friend whose husband was on the Billy Graham team while their children were young. This means he traveled all the time. She made it her practice never to write the days of his arrivals or departures on her main calendar. Why? When her husband was gone, she didn't want to wish away the precious days alone with their children by longing for his return.

On the other hand, when he was home, she didn't want to color the joy of his presence by overshadowing any day with reminders of how short his time at home would be. She wanted every single day to have its own value, whatever it held.

How about you? The holidays can make you uptight and pressured. For children, these can be days that they wish away, longing for Christmas to come so quickly that they miss the days in between. If you can, help them to learn to value every day. However, you yourself may wish Christmas or a deadline were over, just to relieve the pressure that's on you right now. 

Whatever today holds for you, thank our dear Lord for sending his Son to give you peace with him, and bring you the hope of eternity with God. He alone can conquer the holiday blues, tension, shame, and guilt. He alone can lift your heart from the memories and grief that pull you down, bring you permanent relief.

If you are grieving, reach out to one another: ask for comfort, and give comfort. Get outside yourself; not only is that the only way to get perspective on your probliems, it will let God's love flow through you, healing you on the way through.

If you're not grieving at the moment, take a little time to reach out to someone who is. You undoubtedly have someone in your family or circle of friends who needs comfort now. Extend that in the Name of the Lord.

May you be filled with wonderful expectation of God himself and his comfort, no matter what today brings.

All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.

I Peter 1:3