No Bah Humbug for Me

            Only 65 days until Christmas! This is the holiday that produces extreme feelings in people; they either love it or hate it. Commercialism has done great damage to the holiday. I have met many a Christian who are Christmased out and that makes me sad. The joy of Christmas isn’t found under the tree, in the store or with a bite of the perfect cookie. The joy of Christmas is found in the manger, God made flesh because he loves us! How great would it be if we take back Christmas from retail and make it all about Jesus, as it should be?

            I get really perturbed when people get so excited about Halloween and when Christmas is mentioned they just grumble about how commercial it is. People grumble when Christmas decorations are put out in the stores so early, what if those decorations were out all year long? There will be no bah humbug from me. I think of the converted Ebenezer Scrooge who promises to keep Christmas in his heart all year long; how I wish we could all keep Christmas all year long. How? You ask.

            Hang on to the love moments in your life and give thanks for them. Here are few everyday love moments that remind me of Christmas joy:

            A baby smile

            My dog singing on my arrival home

            A hug from one my kids, natural or adopted

            The smell of a meal cooked with love and family around the table

            A song on the radio that touches my heart

            A belly laugh that brings tears to my eyes

            Aroma memories

            Knowing that I made someone else laugh or feel good about herself

            A phone call from a friend

            Satisfaction in a job well done

The list goes on and on. The point is; there are reasons everyday of the year to celebrate Christmas joy. Don’t let the world steal your joy. Let the joy well up inside you and reach to your outsides too, share the joy of love!
Posted by

Comments

  1. RitaOctober 20, 2011 at 9:01 PM

    Right on Jody! Your message spoke volumes to me this evening after a very long work day. It was a day that could suck the joy out of life! But I do have joy from Jesus, and you have me pumped for another long day tomorrow!

    Melrry Christmas! Rita

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How are you?

Image
            When I wake, one of the first things I do is say, “Good morning God!” Some days are more enthusiastic than others. When I greet another human being, I usually follow that greeting with, “how are you?” This morning it occurred to me that I don’t ask God how he is. I have been contemplating this idea, how are you God? Obviously, given his attributes of omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience it is easy to follow the train of thought that he has everything in check. Despite that; I think of him in human terms and I can’t help but feel he is; not mad but disappointed (cringe). When he looks at creation, like a parent gazing on the wreckage of a kid’s toy room, wouldn’t there be disappointment?             As I contemplated that, my meandering mind led me to consider guilt. The guilt that leads to the disappointment of others. Every culture I have known lays claim to guilt; Lutheran guilt, Catholic guilt, Jewish guilt, Italian guilt and so on. Truth be told, we’re all guil
Read more

Out of the Mouth

Image
  Genesis 3:14 “God said to Moses, ‘I AM who I AM.’ This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I Am has sent me to you.”             I feel the need to make a disclaimer statement up front as I can see what I will write in these next few sentences could be misconstrued. This writing is not claiming that man is God although I will say, that if you have claimed the Holy Spirit lives in you, that identifies that God is in you too.             How many times a day do you use the phrase “I am…”? Probably much more than you or I realize. This is how God identified Himself to Moses. “I AM who I AM” We often refer to God as the great I AM, which He is. Going back to how often we use the phrase, for myself those two words are often followed with denigrating words like; so stupid, so foolish, so dumb, so angry, so hurt, so fill in the blank. What if each time we thought about those two words and how we identify ourselves we replaced “I AM” with “God is” most of us (I make this assumptio
Read more

Masterpiece

Image
              As a young person, I was fond of painting, not great at it but reasonable. I set it aside when I fell in love and got married. In these days of isolation I needed to find some other ways to occupy myself other than baking and decided to get back to my paint brushes.   To get used to handling the brushes again I got myself a paint by number,             If you have never tried one of these let me give you a little insight. You receive a canvas with an image divided up into numbered areas and little pots of paint with corresponding numbers. Then you begin a sort of scavenger hunt trying to fill in all the spots of a particular number. Sounds simple enough, however some of these areas are so tiny they are easily overlooked. The tiny spots are important though, they give that little flourish that can draw the eye or round out an object.             Why do I tell you about this? As I dove into this project, a great life analogy was revealed to me and I do love a good word
Read more