Tis the season

There’s something about Christmas. Like the song “Silver Bells” goes “strings of street lights, even stoplights, blink a bright red and green” and I find myself with a spring in my step and hopeful for the new year. 

Yes, we’re all too familiar with reality of the season. We’ve all experienced people bullying each other and fighting over parking places and shopping carts. There’s fighting and bloodshed here and abroad.

But simple acts of kindness still exist. Love still exists. You routinely see people passing along hard-earned dollars to needy organizations and trying to make a difference.

There’s much that makes you want to shake your fist in anger and frustration, but there’s also much that makes you want to shake your head in amazement too.

Instead of the craziness of the season, I prefer to focus on the decisions we all make during the season

Whether we realize it or not, we consciously make a decision on how we’re going to live our lives. We make a choice whether we’re going to focus on love instead of hate, kindness instead of hostility.

God made his choice. God loved the world so much that he let his son be born to a simple peasant girl. He let his son walk the same paths we walked and in the end he let his son die for our sins.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16)

I may never understand why horrible things happen to good people. I may never understand why we have war, death, and destruction. I may never understand why cancer strikes down an innocent child. I may never understand why I’m bound to walk a certain path or why a million other mysteries of live exist. 

I can’t explain any of them, but I can tell you true love when I see it. For me, God’s decision to take on our sins represents true love.

Thank you for this chance to get these thoughts off my chest. Thank you too for reading and my wish for you is a blessed and happy new year.

Merry Christmas!