Tuesday, November 24, 2015

There's Nothing Magical About Christmas...

When i was younger, Christmas was magical.  When i was younger, gifts "suddenly" appeared under the tree and all i had to do was try really really hard to fall asleep the night before.  It was a MIRACLE!!! mostly everything i told this smelly dude at the mall wearing a red suit and fake beard that i wanted suddenly appeared.  But as i grew older and i found out the truth about Santa, who's handwriting "mysteriously" looked like my mom's...it became less and less about what i got for christmas.  sure there are things that i wanted when i was 15 years old.  but i knew then that the things i wanted came outa my mom's paycheck.  it didn't mean so much to me anymore.  In fact, i remember a Christmas about 10 years ago.  I opened my gifts and went to the bathroom to try on all the clothes that I helped my mom pick out for my christmas gifts.  I remember crying.  And it wasn't because it was the wrong sweater or i didn't get the things i wanted...it was because i realized that christmas was so much more.  there were so many others that weren't in a home, or had gifts, or family or turkey or mashed potatoes.  i felt guilty that i had so much and others had so little...or nothing at all.

10 years later, and I'm 29.  and the stuff... doesn't really matter. in fact...it matters less and less every year.  there are things far more eternal and personal and emotional that matter to me now.  i care about putting the tree up, stringing lights and hanging decorations.  i care about being with people i love.  but you see, over the years, things die.  traditions, people, friendships, hopes, dreams, goals, expectations.  and christmas means hardly anything anymore at my house.  I'll be working christmas eve and christmas day.  I'll get time and a half pay...but that doesn't really mean a whole lot to me anymore.  money is nice...but it sure isn't everything.

This year, a tradition dies.  my grandpa has been gone now for 8 months.  gone unexpectedly.  We won't go to my grandparents house this christmas like every year for the past 30 years and sit around a large table and share food, memories, stories, and a tradition started 2 years ago, Bingo.  And i'm left in this lonely place of decision.  Do i choose to believe that the best is yet to come?  Even though things aren't the way i had hoped or planned or expected?  Or do i stoop into grief and stay there, "protected" during the holidays when family and friends and the miracle of Jesus are what is celebrated?  It's hard.  this life of faith...is hard.

Christmas is not magical, but it is supernatural.  A baby born of a virgin, whom through the Savior of the world would come.  Christmas is a miracle.  Not because we get what we want off of a list, not because of anything other than Jesus.  If I am to believe that "hope is here" because hope is anywhere I am, it certainly is a choice that i have to make.  Even though i look around my world and see that things are so not what they used to be, traditions are gone, people are gone, and other things gone...I can still choose to believe that hope lives because Christ in me is the hope of glory.  And because He is in me, Hope is in me.  and hope is not magical. but it is powerful.  hope fills my lungs and breathes onto my faith that sometimes looks just as dead and broken as some of the things around me.  I can have hope to its fullest capacity that the best really is yet to come.  And just because i can't see it ... doesn't mean it's not here.











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