this feeling I get that makes me want to rebel.
I feel it every year...
Right about the time we start gathering our recipes for Thanksgiving dinner,
the retail megaphones start blurting out all the things we need to accumulate to be
happy
normal
hip
cool
Trees are cut,
lights are strung,
music about a baby and a Santa, blares
And we are brainwashed into thinking that we deserve to make
wish lists
"Who decided that on Jesus birthday WE should receive gifts to people who are not in need?"
I am not in need
my children are not in need
my family is not in need
my friends are not in need...
We are in want
but not in need.
I have met people in great need this year
some who are homeless
some who are alone
some who really and truly have next to nothing
some who have suffered through deaths...
They are the ones who deserve to make lists...
And when I read THIS this morning
and see the tiny children growing up so...right...
I regret that I have not always felt this way...
that it is only in the last decade of years or so
that my eyes have slowly shifted off my own household
and on to another's.
My children have not always known a mom who thinks to bless outside our home before we bless those inside it. I can only trust that the mom they remember is the one of their teenage years...
I trust they remember me, not as the one who took away their Christmas
but the one who showed them Christmas...
better late than never...
I'm still figuring it all out
how to give beyond what I can
but not feel the burden to do everything all at one time
Who decided that Christmas was the one time of year that we feel all
CHRISTmasy and giving
and the rest of the year we don't?
What do we really need this year?
I know the answer to that for my own family...
and it's not popular
and it seems all Scroogey
but it's not...
It's Jesus
and only Jesus.
This is my journey...not meant to condemn or judge another's
it's putting down thoughts on a page
and letting the words fall as they may..
So that I remember..
so that my children pick up where I left off someday...
