Word for the Year

A Word of the year is something that people do sometimes in lieu of New Years Resolutions.  They select a word to focus on that describes what they are hoping for in the coming year.  In 2018, I selected the word JOY. I saw that word everywhere and then, of course, it brought to my mind the desire for joy and the work needed towards achieving it.  In 2019 after a hectic year of joy, I longed for PEACE.  I wanted to work towards peace in my home, in my mind, in my life. I spent time reading and studying scriptures and grew in that area. Welcome 2020 and my realization that I need to be very careful as to what word to choose because I naively chose SIMPLIFY. My journal reports that I was “definitely thinking about simplifying and hoping to free myself from some things and decisions so I can spend time where I need to and want to. Just getting rid of stuff!” I wanted to “Simplify my belongings and my involvement in things.” Lastly, In early January I wrote, “Thank you for this new perspective about getting rid of stuff that doesn’t matter so I have time and space for what does matter.” A friend told me to be very careful when selecting my word for 2021 because apparently, the entire globe had to simplify in 2020 to help me with my goals. As I drank out of my “simplify” mug each morning, I was in awe at how my involvement in things had been simplified dramatically.

So, it’s 2021 and after some soul searching, I’ve decided to choose EXPLORE as my new word. I think it sounds fun and I think I can find ways to use it throughout the year no matter what happens. I was beginning to explore at the end of 2020 as I explored ways of celebrating the holidays differently and I hope to explore more options in the future. This year, however, I am prayerful that I will get to explore outside of my house too! I’m getting excited to explore.

Choose a word.  Choose it carefully and share it with others.  Happy 2021!

P.S. It’s beginning already….while writing this I saw the following icon and I clicked on it.  I still don’t know what it means, but maybe I will explore that later!

Dear Adult Children,

Dear Adult Children,

This is 2020 and it is a very special time. It will soon be Christmas and the holidays haven’t been the same for you.  You missed Thanksgiving and now you will miss Christmas at home. On Thanksgiving morning, not only did you miss the homemade Turkey, Stuffing, and Noodles, but you also missed me yelling for you to get out the door to go to Mimi’s on time and you missed me rolling my eyes when you showed up a bit late to Grandma’s with the appetizer. You missed working hard all week, rushing home from work, and getting in a car to drive in traffic 6-8 hours for a rushed weekend.

Typically, today, the day before Christmas Eve you would be getting in a car, or boarding a flight and rushing home. My heart aches that that isn’t happening this year and I woke in tears this morning, but in addition to my sadness, I also have appreciation.  I recognize what you go through to be “home for the holidays.”

So this year is different.  You have the opportunity to experience Jesus’s birthday in your own unique way.  I pray that you find ways to celebrate with the ones you love (& I do recognize you have loved ones who don’t live in this small town.) Be a light wherever you are. Enjoy the uniqueness of Christmas 2020, go and do. Treasure this time. Appreciate this time. 

And know. It will never be as easy as this year to let Mom know you’d like to celebrate Christmas differently and in your own way, with your own loved ones. Now, go and enjoy Christmas because I expect you’ll be busy making your travel plans to Chicora for Christmas 2021 as soon as you can!

I love you.

Confused About Christmas Plans?

Is Christmas 2020 different for you? Have you decided where you will go, who you will see or what you will do? Are you making plans for the day even if the plans are to stay home? Are you feeling joyful about this? I’m guessing that this year, you may not be as joyful about your plans as you would like.  Your thoughts may be rambling, you may be indecisive and you are confused about the best thing to do. This doesn’t feel very joyful, because you simply can’t have joy when you are confused.

Even though the thoughts of celebrating Christmas during a pandemic brings about a lot of confusion, it isn’t the first time there was confusion about Christmas and it turns out that we are in good company. Think about the Christmas story in scripture, everyone in the story is confused except for the angels. Joseph, Mary, Shepherds, all wondered what was going to happen and what was going on. Even the Wisemen were confused about exactly where they were going, but when they were confused, they chose to follow God’s light one step at a time. 

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” –Matt 2:1-3

These wise men traveled all the way to Jerusalem but still had to ask where Jesus could be found. They were still seeking him.

He  (King Herod) sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” –Matt 2:8

So they continued…

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.  When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.  –Matt 2:9-10

Aaaaah.  They found him. When they were confused, they followed his light to wind up where they needed to be. They needed his light to help them and when we are confused we need to follow his light too. It may not be a star in the sky, but God still is willing to give us directions and a path to follow in his Word. He will help us decide how to get to Christmas and what plans we should make. Ask Him to guide you as you make plans, follow His light one step at a time and you, too, will find Him at Christmas. It’s Jesus’s birthday, our Savior’s birthday, and he wants us to celebrate it, don’t allow confusion about holiday plans or the lack of them, rob you of His true joy. Be like the Wisemen and follow God’s light one step at a time.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing (or generous) spirit. –Psalm 51:12

 

We Can’t Be Together This Year?

Man. 2020. What a Christmas Season.  There are just people I can’t be together with this year.  I can’t see my kids, I can’t go to church, I can’t celebrate with my siblings. I can’t go to a Christmas concert. We just can’t be together this year.  BUT, actually, we CAN be together this year, but we are choosing not to. If we wanted to defy the CDC and all things recommended, we could be together.

2020 Christmas brings another reality though.  There are many people this year that I wish I could be with, but I am choosing not to see….then there is someone who I truly can’t see. My father in law. Senior.  We lost him in March right at the beginning of the pandemic and we should’ve suffered through all the holiday “firsts without Papa” but we didn’t. We haven’t been getting together since his death because of Covid reasons, so there has been way more than one empty seat at the table, but only one forever.

So, let me acknowledge him in the hope that you will share those people with whom you truly can’t be with this Christmas.  Those you have loved and lost in 2020.Senior. My kids Papa. Wore the same hand-knitted Christmas sweater with one green sock and one red sock (My husband has a pair just like them!) for Christmas morning. He always bought us lottery tickets using the numbers of our birthdates. He made Gingerbread houses with the kids. He attended every concert and Christmas Pageant. He was a good sport and played games involving placing a cookie on your head and wiggling your face until it made it to your mouth. He often had to leave Christmas day festivities to go home and feed the cat. He didn’t have a cat and that was code for taking a nap. He loved everyone around that Christmas tree and we loved him.  He is missed. We can’t see him, but we are so grateful for the memories. Many more than can fit in a short paragraph. The love he showed us is a love that I intend to share with those who I choose to not be with this Christmas via cards, calls, gifts & video chats. I “can’t” see them this Christmas, but I intend to see them again soon and I intend to honor Senior’s memory the best I can. Time to start looking for those socks!

A Battle for Joy

It’s December 2020.  Turn on the TV first thing in the morning, and you don’t see Bing Crosby singing White Christmas you hear the news.  Even if you don’t have the news channel on, snippets of the news sneak in between the programming and you can’t escape the reality that this year is different.  We are trying to prepare for Christmas in the midst of a global pandemic. Our minds battle between dealing with safety mitigations and picking up stocking stuffers. It’s hard to maintain joy when you hear a newscaster counting Covid deaths and days ‘til Christmas in the same breath. It’s a battle to find peace and joy, but it’s a battle worth fighting.  I decided to fight it earlier this week and after allowing myself to turn off the news, I turned on the Christmas music and headed out to do some holiday shopping.

At the first shop, I donned my mask, entered through a crowded doorway, sanitized my cart handle, and was hit with crowded aisles, people bumping into me, and people not wearing masks! With every nose I saw I got angrier. The sign on the door said “masks required,” it’s that simple. I don’t want to get political here because this is truly not a masking matter but a heart matter. I was resentful that others weren’t wearing masks. Others’ actions were affecting my shopping experience and I didn’t know what I could do about it. It felt like these complete strangers who have their own beliefs were hurting me. I was taking their choices personally and I was resentful. I quickly grabbed my few items, avoided others as much as possible, and headed to the car. It was then that I realized that I was allowing others’ actions to affect my joy. I needed to stop, pray, and regroup. It was then that all that I have been taught and told in the past, came back to me and I thought I’d share….

Simply put, you can’t be resentful and joyful at the same time. Because of sin and our rebellion against God, we will be hurt…and we will hurt others. But being resentful and bitter about these hurts will keep us from experiencing joy. We have to learn how to let it go and Joseph in Matthew chapter 1 gives us a great example of how to do that. 

18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.  –Matthew 1:18-19

This is interesting. What Joseph knows at this point is that Mary is pregnant and he isn’t the father. I’m assuming he was a bundle of emotions. He probably felt betrayed, cheated, broken-hearted, and just plain mad, but he “had in mind to divorce her quietly.” He had every right to be mad, and I’m sure he was hurt, but he did not get bitter and resentful. He didn’t plot revenge, when he was hurt, he chose to offer grace and let it go.  and he decides to divorce her quietly. 

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Wow. That Joseph is some guy! AFTER he considered divorcing her quietly, THEN an angel appears to him and explains the plan and the honor he will have as he raises Jesus as his son. Joseph chose to show grace and let it go before he knew the whole story.

Back to 2020. How many times am I hurt or just irked by others and I don’t make the Joseph choice? I don’t choose to show grace and let it go.  Instead, I choose to fester in my annoyances and bitterness and it just snowballs. I may call someone to share with them the number of people that I confronted that weren’t behaving how I would like them to behave, I may make a mental list of the things that have gone wrong with my day, I may wallow in resentment against people or in the whole Covid situation. Holding on to all these negative thoughts and emotions won’t change the situation at all. I need to figure out how to show grace and let it go and then maybe I will be blessed with some better understanding and peace as Joseph was. 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t purchase the grace I need to show others at the register of the store I was just in. Where was I going to get this needed grace to show others so that I could have a better day? 

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. –Psalm 121

I said a prayer (“Lord, help me to not notice the people that annoy me and help me to not annoy others.”) and I entered the next store where things went smoothly for me and I had an enjoyable shopping experience and I felt the joy of Christmas shopping.  I chose to show grace (with God’s help) and I was blessed. This is a true testament to God’s power and might because the second store I went into was Walmart! (Haha) When you are hurt or annoyed, choose to offer grace and let it go. Fight for your joy!

Don’t Wait…to Celebrate!

It’s 16 days until Christmas and this year is the same as other years when I wake in the morning with a list of things to do and I regret that they aren’t already done.  A global pandemic can’t erase what my mind and body do every year at this time.  I need to bake, wrap, gift, repeat.  However, this year, there will definitely be some differences.  For example, I won’t be in a room full of presents, people, and holiday cheer watching great-nieces and nephews open presents.  I won’t be passing out little favors to the 15 people at Bible Study. I won’t be swapping cookie recipes around the table at book club. So, though the thoughts are the same, the actions have to be different.  How can I do it differently this year?

This year I recognize that it is not all preparing and then a crescendo to a big event on Christmas day.  This year of all years is the time to celebrate Christmas as it happens. When we used to bake to share with a cookie exchange, the actual cookie exchange was the event…this year, the baking is.  Don’t forget to enjoy it! Don’t forget that baking is a part of the celebration. We used to shop and wrap and give to see the receiver’s joy.  This year while shopping (if you are still able to do it in person) stop a moment and recognize that this year…shopping is a gift! Shopping is part of the celebration. We don’t have to wait until Christmas Day to give a gift.  Give it now. Sing carols now. Shop now. Bake now. Visit (safely) now. Celebrate now.

My daughter and son-in-law came for a visit last weekend. (The mitigations we put in place are fodder for another blog post!) But, they decided to travel home for Christmas early in case things with the pandemic and/or their jobs got worse…not to mention whether their health or our health might prevent them from a visit later. So, they traveled home for Christmas on December 6th. And, Christmas it was. We celebrated by eating Chex Mix, making paper snowflakes, playing games, drinking Christmas tea, making chocolates and we even gave a couple of gifts. We were together and it was Christmas. I don’t know if that is the only Christmas we will celebrate with the newlyweds, but it was a good one. Don’t wait.  See everything that you are doing now as celebrating Christmas. We can celebrate Christmas and Jesus’s birth no matter what the date on the calendar is and we should.  Don’t wait to and hold in all the joy until Christmas morning….spread it around…and do it now!

Somehow, not only for Christmas , but all the long year through, the joy that you give to others, is the joy that comes back to you. And the more you spend in blessing, the poor and lonely and sad, the more of your heart’s possessing, returns to you glad.  — John Greenleaf Whittier

Christmas Anticipation in 2020

Advent has always been a time of sweet anticipation.  I remember as a kid seeing the Advent wreath with candles at the front of the church and getting so excited when I knew the center one would soon be lit on Christmas Eve.  It was a very JOY filled time and it still is as we anticipate the true meaning of Christmas.  However, every year in addition to the advent wreath lighting at church, our preparations at home and with family traditions build weekly leading toward Christmas Day.  We put the tree up anticipating the presents under it, we shop anticipating how the receiver will respond, we bake anticipating the joy of sharing our families’ recipes. We anticipate. And, this year the anticipation may not be as sweet as we remember from years prior. Will there be presents under the tree or will I have to ship them? Will I bother to shop or honestly, does an Amazon gift card make the most sense this year? Do I even need to bake if I’m not entertaining? I may allow my anxiety about not knowing exactly what this year’s Christmas celebration will look like to run away with my joy. Rick Warren in a sermon once listed anxiety as the first destroyer of joy and he said that the antidote to that was to choose to trust God and accept his plan and he gave a perfect example of someone doing just that in the Christmas story.  Let’s look at Mary and see if she, too, was faced with some uncertainty.

²⁶ In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

Wow. That sounds like anxiety to me.

³⁰ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

I’m still not sure that the angel’s words would’ve stopped my anxiety. The angel explained a bit more…

³⁴ “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

³⁵ The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called^[a] the Son of God. ³⁶ Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. ³⁷ For no word from God will ever fail.”

And now comes the antidote:

³⁸ “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Mary answered. She chose to trust God and accept His plan. There you have it. There is the answer to all of our anxiety due to the uncertainty this 2020 Christmas season.  We can choose to trust God and accept His plan.  Whatever that may be.

Deck the halls, trim the tree, do the shopping and baking, but most importantly, choose to trust!

“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”     –Isaiah 26:3-4