So, What's It Going To Be?

The Christmas season is officially upon us! For me, this means that my husband and son can no longer roll their eyes at me when they walk into the room and find me watching yet another Hallmark Christmas movie (yes, I am one of those people and yes, I have been watching them since October). I love Christmas, but despite what the popular Christmas song says, it is not the most wonderful time of the year for everyone. Many people experience feelings of heaviness, sadness, and loneliness during the holiday season each year. 

Over the weekend, I found out that one of my preschool staff members' father had passed away unexpectedly. This morning, I walked into prayer time at work and found out some heart-wrenching news about one of our preschool students. Last week, there was a shooting at a high school in Michigan that took the lives of four students and injured even more. Then there is the stress that comes with all the shopping, traffic, parties, cleaning, preparing to spend time with all of those difficult family members...the list goes on and on. Does that sound like the most wonderful time of the year to you? 

How did we get here? This is supposed to be the second most exciting day of the year for believers (second only to Easter in my opinion). More importantly, how can we go from just surviving the holidays, to actually experiencing the holidays as one of the most wonderful times of the year? Let me tell you a few stories from my life last week that may help you figure that out.

We have been doing a Discovery Bible Study with another family for a few months now, and we decided to take a break for the month of December. My husband and I decided to continue to do a DBS with our kids during the break to stay in the habit. Last Thursday, we were supposed to start with Luke 1. Of course, last Thursday evening went south faster than a yankee after retirement. One kid had a meltdown, both kids were fighting, my husband and I were yelling...it was ridiculous! Normally, we would have just skipped the Bible study time altogether, figuring that there was no way that anything good was going to come from it with all of the tension in the house. For some reason on that particular night, we decided to do it anyway, and let me tell you, it was amazing! We pushed through and ended up having an incredible conversation. Both kids were actively engaged, and we all ended up learning a thing or two from each other and from the scripture that we read.  

On Friday, I went to the greenway like I usually do. Despite the fact that it was going to get into the 70’s that day, it was still in the 40’s when I got there that morning. It was cold. I got out and started stretching and began my warm up walk before starting my run. I very nearly went back to the car. My plan was to go about 6.5 miles that morning, but I was seriously reconsidering. I was freezing! My hands were so cold they almost hurt. That voice inside my head was getting louder and louder trying its best to convince me that I had not dressed appropriately and that I should just go back to the car and forget about it. I did not feel adequately prepared at all. 

I pushed through all of those voices telling me that I couldn’t do it. I pushed through all of those voices telling me that I wasn’t prepared. I pushed through the cold. I knew that my body needed a good long cardio session, and I pushed through all of the temptation to quit. God showed me what my body was capable of that morning. I ran further than I have in a really long time. I ran further than I thought I could anymore. 

Then, I was with my fourth and fifth graders at church on Sunday morning, and we did an activity where the kids had to write down something about God that is worthy of praise. We went around one at a time at the end and told everyone what we wrote down and why. I was blown away by some of their answers. One of them wrote down the word “protection,” and he shared about a time when he almost got hit by a car and how he thinks that God protected him that day. Another wrote down the word “miracles” and shared about a time when someone close to his family was hit by a car, and the doctors said that there was no way that he would live through it but he did. Another child shared a story about his father wanting to move to America and despite all of his friends and family telling him that he would never be able to do it, he is finally here today. I was so encouraged by how much these kids, being as young as they are, could see God moving and working in their lives. 

You see, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the things of this world. It is easy to let the voices in your head and of the world drown out the still small voice of God. It is a lot easier to give up when things get hard than it is to push through and do what you set out to do in the first place. The stories that we hear about what is going on in the lives of children and students these days make it easy to think that they are just a lost generation destined to remain lost. This time of year, it is especially easy to let the busyness and noise of the holidays distract you from the truth of them. This time of year, it gets dark outside early, and it is easier to let the literal darkness invade your spirit. It can be easy to lose hope in this world that we are living in now, but did you notice a theme running through those stories that I shared? 

Focus.

Where is your focus? When things go south, where is your focus? When you realize that you are unprepared, where is your focus? When you are bombarded by stories of loss, pain, and suffering, where is your focus? When doctors deliver devastating news, where is your focus? When circumstances seem impossible, where is your focus? When you find yourself in the month of December, heading towards what should be the second most important and exciting day of the year for you as a believer, where is your focus? The voices are never going to stop. You are always going to face hard things. There will always be lost people doing lost people things. Busyness will always fight for your attention. Noise will always fight for your mind. Darkness will always be lurking around you. The point is not to figure out how to avoid all of these things. The point is to figure out what you are going to focus on.

Might I suggest a verse for you to focus on when the heaviness, sadness, and loneliness of the holiday season begin to creep in? It is a verse that has become so important and life-giving to me that I had a reminder of it tattooed on my wrist. The verse is John 1:5, and I like the amplified version best. It says, 

“The Light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it or overpower it or appropriate it or absorb it [and is unreceptive to it].” 

There will always be darkness friends, but the darkness has never and will never overcome the light. Focusing on this verse brings me peace. Focusing on this verse restores hope within me. This verse reminds me of that moment over 2,000 years ago when God sent down His light to invade the darkness that had settled over His creation in the form of an unassuming baby in a feeding trough in the middle of a tiny town that wasn’t even worth mentioning by most people’s standards back then. Light invaded the darkness that night, and the darkness still has not overcome it. Hear me when I tell you that no matter how hopeless it may feel this holiday season, the darkness cannot win unless you allow it to. The more you focus on the darkness, the more darkness you allow in. The more you focus on the light, the faster the darkness has to flee. It’s your choice. What you choose to focus on will determine whether you just survive the holidays, or whether you experience the holidays as one of the most wonderful times of the year. So, what’s it going to be? Darkness or light?