Sunny Pathway

Thursday, January 1, 2009

A New Twist




Oh, jolly, jolly! I woke up to my usual New Year's Day activity. Putting Christmas decorations away. Are you catching a hint of sarcasm here?

There was a new twist this year, however. While I don't generally make New Year's resolutions because they don't work for me, I do like to take stock of what God has done. And I think He's done something awesome.

For the first time in our married life, I willingly downscaled every aspect of our Christmas activities. The hardest thing was that, like the rest of the nation, we spent less money on presents. Then, I planned the dinner so preparations could be done ahead. Most surprising, however, I put less effort into the tree.

I have mixed feelings about the presents and food. I wish we’d not decided to spend less money. Giving is fun. As for the food, all the early prep tired me out as much as doing it that day. When dinner was over we opened presents, and then I took a two hour nap! (Ken said they were able to play seven-up, seven-down because I didn’t want to play. Somehow, that didn’t make me feel a bit better!) I missed the fun.

But concerning decorations, downscaling was great. I didn’t know Christmas decorations have been stressful for me. But when I think about it, given an excuse, I’ve always enjoyed avoiding them. When our children were pre-schoolers, mold allergies from a live tree were a factor one year. I simply took everything off, Ken placed the offending tree in a snow bank in front of our front window, and he brought it in for about two hours on Christmas Eve so we could put presents under it before he took it outside again. We had an adventure.

But there are more recent events,too. One year I avoided all decorating because we traveled to one of our daughter’s the week before Christmas.

The tree itself has always been an issue. When allergies became a factor, we purchased one of the early artificial varieties; we called it the bottle-brush tree—but our youngest son, now 44, claims that when he thinks of Christmas, that’s the first image he has. I assume he remembers it with the homemade ornaments: colored-paper stars dipped in parafin, strange affairs made from egg cartons that I sprayed gold, and three-dimensional snowflakes made from white paper.

I think I began buying ornaments about the time we purchased our present tree. Lots of ornaments. Putting everything together was work. And taking everything down was more work. When we moved into town from the lake, our granddaughter began helping me with the decorating part,and we created works of art.

Well, this year she was less than enthused—and, to my surprise, I was relieved. When I finally had everything I needed to make the tree I thought I wanted, it became a burden. If our granddaughter was not enthused, perhaps she’d picked up on my lack of enthusiasm.

Ken and I pondered until he finally assembled the tree and added lights. I put up the red ribbon garland. And we were done. And I've enjoyed it enormously because I enjoyed the lights.


The best part, however, was putting decorations away today. It was a short event. Here's Ken taking the tree apart.
Because it went so well, I suspect that next year I'll put out less of the additional stuff, too!

As for the dinner, I know that next year I won't prepare a turkey with all the trimmings. I don’t know what we’ll do, but it will be simple.

Where is God in all this? Well, He’s shown me my heart wasn’t focused on Him.

Surprise, surprise. In my insecurity, I went after things I didn’t want—because I didn’t know myself well enough to see I was stuck in a stronghold of Satan.

Other people could probably have the same realization and not see God's hand in everything. But since God told me I was perfect—that He made me the way He wanted me—I keep discovering new areas where I’ve gone after standards set by others. I’ve misinterpreted Scriptures about dying to self, believing I had to fulfill society's expectations. Have I told you before that God doesn’t stop dealing with His children as they grow older? (If you’re a new reader, that’s a joke.) I'm so glad He continues to set me free.

The revelation of my personal value was probably about seven years ago—maybe eight. All I can say is, “God, forgive me for the years I pursued things You didn’t put in my heart.” And to my husband and children, “Forgive me for diminishing the joy of the season by spreading my personal stress.”

As I said, I don’t generally spend a lot of time on resolutions, but I do like to take stock of what God has done. Awesome, don’t you think?

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