It's now officially Christmas. Jesus' "birthday." A time of celebration and quiet thankfulness... Or so we'd all like to think.
While visiting with childhood friends, their father (my old pastor) and one friend's new baby, it struck me how quickly Christmas snuck up on all of us and how fast 2009 has flown past. You see, this will be the family's second Christmas without their mother. It will have been a year and a half since she was killed in a tragic car accident. I still can't believe it.
As we sat there reminiscing about the old times, I couldn't help but glance about the living room at pictures of their mother. Family photos. Graduation pictures. Small momentos of a women who loved/lived/served well. It was bittersweet -- to know that she was gone from this earthly realm and would never meet her grandson or witness anymore milestones in the life of the family she loved so well.
Going about the day (and the week for that matter), my heart and mind have been elsewhere. Distracted. Drifting. In a season when my heart could have been gratefully reflecting on the miraculous, immeasurable divine gift our Savior, I wasted moments in self-indulgence and gluttony in every sense of the word.
I'm short-fused lately. People cannot/will not live up to my expectations. I feel somewhere in-between and as if I stick out like a sore thumb everywhere I go. I am perturbed to put it nicely.
All of this restlessness came full circle today as I watched everyone (including me) run around in a frenzy:
- Watching as my mom battled her guilty conscious at not being able to give anything to our old pastor's family nor to my brother or I (we've been in the habit of not exchanging gifts for a number of years simply because we'd all be broke)
- Attending a Christmas Eve service with the church I'd left, my calloused heart drifted toward cynicism, judgement and impatience.
- Going to a friend's house, I labored to tolerate friends who'd somehow decided that on Christmas Eve it would be fun to get annoyingly loud and piss-drunk playing drinking games to then go and spend the rest of the night berating people (some who weren't even present and many of whom have since left the church).
- Checking in on Facebook, I'm bombarded with statuses about last-minute Christmas shopping or gift-wrapping.
Thinking back on all of this, I can't help but fear how skewed our (my) thoughts (still) are about this all-too-important holiday season.
Lord, please forgive me/us... We know all too well what we do and don't do.
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