Category Archives: Christmas

Discovering Your Joy Within!

12 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Attitude, Blessings, Celebration, Choices, Christmas, Contentment, Empathy, Encouragement, Giving, Goodness, Hope, Inspiration, Jesus' Birth, Joy, Love, Peace, Positivity, Seasons, Strength

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I mostly wrote this five years ago this very day, but it seems to ring even more true for the world we are living in this day! The greatest challenge and endeavor in life is to learn the vital lesson of discovering your joy within! With that comes the importance of holding onto that joy peacefully and consistently, no matter the circumstances you are currently experiencing, all while reflecting that contentment as a light back into the world. None of us is immune to hardships, traumas, and problems in life or the catastrophic events beyond our control, but we have shared enough similar woes and life experiences to know that our inner joy is truly not a reflection of what has or will happen to us as much as it is a reflection of our choice as to how and what we feel, think, and believe about these matters! We choose how to summarily view our lives based on how we feel about what has happened to us. If we always cede our joy to feelings of despair, worry, anxiety, sadness, constantly mourning what we’ve lost over time, we erode the sense of joy we are meant to experience just by living! It’s as if we forget that our lives were filled with both happy and sad, ups and downs, laughter and tears. Anchoring our joy within ensures us that we won’t look back upon our lives in misery and despair!

We’re so well-equipped to love, to empathize, to be the face of compassionate caring for others once we have assured all of that for and within ourselves, by recognizing our own ability to keep our peace, joy, and contentment alive within our own soul and spirit! It’s so easy to harden from within with each trauma and every downturn. Soon enough, we have lost our ability to enjoy our own life or to help others enjoy theirs! By instilling in ourselves an indefatigable and rebounding joy within, we make ourselves almost immune to that habit of dwelling in perpetual despair! We may for a time mourn, ache, or hurt, but it need not take our life’s joy for all time! Perhaps we need only shift our focus more to the bright moments, the great times, and the things which we consider blessings, rather than focusing more often on what has grieved us or made us sad. And in just a time, that becomes the new habit!  

Find and hold onto your joy from within by habitually deciding to do just that! And then be a purposeful light for others, assuring them as to what joy, peace, and contentment can be for many who possibly need your leadership in that regard! It takes faith to live as a light, but the Lord sets a great example for us as to why we should! Shine your light for all the world to see, especially during this season of Christmas! You never know who might be inspired and led by your example in turn. There is enough darkness and despair in this world, enough sadness and suffering, reflect for others the way which leads them to their joy and light! And have a joyous season celebrating Christmas!   

My Favorite “Gift” . .

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in aging, Attitude, Celebration, Choices, Christmas, Contentment, Family, Happiness, Joy, Love

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My favorite “gift”, over the recent holiday week between Christmas until just after New Year’s, was hearing from my family/friends that they appreciated the homemade treats I prepared for them and the home-cooked meals we shared together during that week. It’s nice to know that just the act of preparing a meal, sitting down together at home and appreciating the tastes  tailor-made for them was so welcome and worthwhile!   4a16ea037f3b62fc0dde89e57bdb6d5b

 

We set times for those meals and sat down at those times; then we prayed and took our leisure . . sans gizmos, outside influences and disruptions . .  to dine in peace, together. It was lovely! I think it helped to take the rush out of our days; and it gave us invaluable time being together eating and conversing! It really was a reminder of a different period of life, years ago, when our family and loved ones dining together throughout the day was a regular part of our lives. Now, we’re older, busier and strewn across the nation working on our careers; and some of our family and friends have passed on. It is not possible to share in those same precious moments of bonding and reunion each day. So it truly meant something to have the chance to recreate the experience during such a momentous and special time as Christmas with those who still could be together. We also did the same type of thing at Thanksgiving, but not to the same extent we did it at Christmas. With ten days off together between Christmas Eve and the weekend after New Year’s Day, we didn’t eat out once or skip one meal being together. We planned times and made that effort to share our meals, regardless the schedules we had to keep or the errands we had to run. 

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Some people might balk at such an effort these days! After all, don’t we all enjoy time away from one another? And surely, when we have our divided, blended, absentee, broken and any other manner of family, it would seem corny or almost impossible to do such a thing as bring family together at meals! Well, with time’s passage, I care more about what matters to my family and loved ones. And we valued this time, these efforts to connect and be with one another; and we also know that nothing, including time, is promised or guaranteed for any of us in the years ahead! We wouldn’t have traded that time and the simplicity of meals at home for any other manner of sharing this recent special week together! I’m so thankful for one more year having had that opportunity with dears, cooking and taking care of them in ways they don’t get to appreciate often, if at all, during the rest of their year. It meant something, it invoked sweet memories of loved ones who’ve passed; and it will serve to connect us with new and treasured memories of this year’s holiday! Family and friends are truly the best part of the holidays; and “gifts” such as knowing their appreciation and gratitude for that time spent together is truly priceless!  Signature02

Giving From Our Gratitude . .

28 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Attitude, Christmas, Compassion, Fullness, Giving, God, Goodness, Gratitude

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Giving isn’t just monetary; there are opportunities to give our time, to share our talents, our abilities, to make meals, to help friends as well as soon-to-be new friends who we know need a hand. There are ways to give from the heart at every turn of the calendar, clock face and sun rising. Giving of oneself is a way to truly show gratitude for life’s bounty! For it is by our acknowledgement of how truly blessed we are in all manners and ways, that we grow in our desire to share with others our blessings of all kinds!

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I enjoy baking, cooking and providing comfort for others, so when I have that opportunity, I do so with a happy heart and a glad spirit! I often bake dozens of cookies for a local long-term care nursing facility at Christmas, as the patients and staff appreciate such gestures. Whatever way it is that you can give from the heart to all those around you, can truly provide a great way to share with others the many blessings in which your life has been enriched! Some of us are amply blessed monetarily, and so we have the chance to share in money. Others have time to give to people who need a hand, and so they share their time by being a blessing to others. Some might make gifts or treasures by which they might either directly offer gifts or raise funds.

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Gratitude in spirit always leads to giving, for it is only in sharing that we can truly appreciate the value and meaning of our blessings! God has been so good to us, providing all His richness of bounty to us over our lifetimes in the form of materials goods, possessions, comforts and wealth; our gratitude and giving is the way we exemplify our stewardship for those treasures to Him!  Signature02

The Very Reason For the Season!

20 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Celebration, Christianity, Christmas, Faithfulness, Joy, Traditons

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Watching some local television show this morning with a gift-giving expert explaining about the tradition of Christmas gift giving, reminds me that many are always willingly taking Christ out of Christmas. There was absolutely no mention during her historical summation of the tradition of Christmas gift-giving, of the fact that Christmas gifts were and are still given at Christmas to represent the gifts presented by the Magi to the newborn baby Jesus . . himself the ultimate gift of love to the world! I am sure gifts are also now given habitually by those who aren’t believers; the commercialized and secular world, uninterested in the traditional reasons, having joined in the event because of the national holiday. But I think we have moved too far from the reason we started celebrating or partaking of Christ’s Mass in the first place; if we no longer even want to mention His name in our “historical” explanations regarding Christmas. Jesus is the reason for the season! Does the mere mention of Jesus Christ cause harm somehow? Are some so afraid to mention Him in context of a national event and national history, that they prefer to dilute truths and alter facts?  christmas

 

And somewhere right now, in reading this, someone will want to attack me for explaining that Christmas is even a Christian event or for “picking on” this gift-giving expert! Yet, the very root of the word, Christmas, means a mass or remembrance to honor and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Which I must admit, to Christians, is the most significant part of our timeline of history, prophesy, faith, hope and tenets of belief other than the crucifixion of Christ upon the cross! The birth of Jesus Christ represents to us a long-awaited, hoped-for and promised gift of God’s love and forgiveness; so great was and is this gift, because Jesus is the lamb of salvation and redemption! So before we go completely forgetting that fact in our contemporary, more secularized, world version of the history of this big day and season, let us honor the history, which for generations we have established in this nation for Christmas.  In this nation, we’ve a national holiday specifically because enough of us held a prevalent mind to want to unite in such a celebratory time of worship and praise for the sake of our Christian beliefs! And so a national holiday was created to allow us to have our masses, time of worship and praise together with family and friends, for the great joy and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ!  images christmas2

 

 

I don’t mind any nonbelievers or secularists, or those of other faiths, enjoying Christmas as their favorite holiday – as it is a national holiday now set aside and celebrated by believers and nonbelievers alike; but please don’t forget, or omit on purpose, the origin of the word or what the celebrations, worship services and mass historically and actually mean to those of us who do believe! Please don’t leave out the reason for the season, or any of our purposeful, specific behaviors during Christmas in any context, especially when those help in explaining its history! It negates the very reason Christmas came to be a national holiday in the first place; that so many held – and still hold – within their hearts, a desire to worship in unity and to give praise through celebrations, the birth of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Christians are to be givers by nature, as we were taught to do so by the example of Jesus; and that is the most important part of this story. He gave Himself for us so unselfishly and so lovingly, it is beyond our ability to grasp. God gave to His children the ultimate gift of eternal life with our Father through the New Covenant fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Please don’t leave that out of your story when describing the very meaning and reason for Christmas, or the joy in gifting at Christmas-time to others!

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