I just read the best Christmas advice ever. Yesterday. Too late. Thanks. Oh well, it was still good advice, and helped make sense of my own Christmas experience and that of some of my friends. So here it is in brief. The full letter is on line here.How to not only survive but actually enjoy the holiday season:
1. Resist it. That is, the madness of it. The rush to fit it all in. As C.S. Lewis said, "It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try and 'keep it' (in its commercial aspect) to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before Dec 25th everyone is worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and the think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no shape for merry-making; much less to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house."
2. You can't possibly please family. Not all of them. Jesus knew that. Jesus came from one of the most family-centric cultures in the world, those family systems where it is simply assumed you will drop what you're doing and go to them. Not Jesus. When his mother and brothers show up and want to speak with him He responds, "'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' Pointing to his disciples he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers.'" Oh my. This isn't what any of us expected. He taught us that his true family are those who are in the family of God, that there are two realities we live in, and one is truer than the other. (And isn't that the story of Christmas???)
3. Let the longing bring you to God. Isn't there this internal conflict of emotions associated with Christmas? Doesn't it awake longings that you both love and hate? Aren't there moments, especially at night, when everything seems so beautiful? especially Christmas eve? Aren't there moments when relationships do seem to reach beyond the barrier, and connection is so good? There is time off to enjoy it all. Life seems about to come together the way we always wanted it to. But it never does. You can hate that, or you can let that desire take you deeper into God. You can bring this part of your heart to Jesus.
4. Lavish on someone. Some one. Not every one. This is one of the funnest parts of Christmas--to go over the top for someone you love, put something under the tree that just blows them away. Don't you love it when someone does this for you? Now, it's not doing it for everyone or you're back in the madness again. But some one. "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
Again, the whole letter from John Eldredge on the ransomed heart website under community/newsletters.
I still have more thoughts about Christmas being "a time to spend with family" which was so widely trumpeted this year with Christmas falling on Sunday. I don't know who decided it was "a time to spend with family" and I rather think that does more harm than good, contributes to the depression and anxiety of the season, and shifts the focus away from what Christmas is all about (as Charlie Brown and I found out). I will post on that later, but for now I would say that this year was a very hard year for me and my family with my mom passing away in July. It was our first Christmas without her, and very difficult. I wrote my dad that I felt like an amputee, only it's not just an arm or a leg missing, it’s like a little piece of everything is missing. And Christmas morning had all the signs of being a real kick in the pants until Jesus showed up and brought new life to this family--not because we "spent time with family" but because our family was spending time with Jesus. And really, it's not because we included the story of Jesus in our family time, but because Jesus included our family in His story.
No comments:
Post a Comment