In a few days I would love to be a fly on the wall in a few houses to hear the conversation about the upcoming holidays! I think some might go like this, “Have you realized that Thanksgiving is coming? How can we get by without having to invite Jack and Jill? You know they always want to go up the hill and insist on carrying pails of water!” After some thought the answer comes, “I would rather have them than to have Virginia Wolf! She always embarrasses her husband and man I bet when they get home they have a knock down, drag out fight!” Another might be saying, “Grandma is getting a little crazy maybe she won’t remember we didn’t invite her, you think?” “Well she can’t come anyway because she lives with Alice in Wonderland and she has already said she will never darken our door again! Oh what to do?”
I am telling you things I have heard through the years from people that actually called me asking what I would do in situations that sound a lot like those I just mentioned and I always play the peacemaker and try to give advice that will make everyone happy. So I ask you, what’s it all about anyway?
I’ve been watching the Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel even though the plot is basically the same in everyone. You have a choice, either someone gets to go into their past and get a re-do, or there is a very cranky, terrible person that suddenly sees the “Christmas” light and changes dramatically! The point is that there is always a happy ending with the right people falling in love, the family that was fragmented ends up hugging, laughing and happy.
So you have a choice about how your holidays will end this year. Are you going to be a Grinch, the one who refuses to give in and be nice or the one who sees the light and changes and becomes the one that is the glue and puts everything back together?
“I’m a good Christian“, you may be thinking, “just ask anybody! I gave money in the drive to raise money to buy food for the needy, mammograms for ladies that can’t afford it, money for homeless shelters, widows, abandoned divorcée’s. You name it, I’ve ridden miles, ran in marathons, polished pews…” and the list goes on and on. All of those things are nice and I am not demeaning anything I mentioned or didn’t mention, however those things will not buy your way into heaven. It’s like looking at a chocolate cake, thick fudge icing and then cutting into it and finding it was simply covered cardboard, all show and no go.
What does the Bible have to say about it?
Isaiah 58:7 Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. Matthew 22:40 ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”
There you go, scripture from the Old and the New Testament telling us the same thing, we must have love one for the other! OK, time to buy your turkey!
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