My Christmas Spirit

If you ask anyone who knows me they will tell you I am a pretty genuine person!  If I say something I mean it.  If I am your friend you can depend on me.  But if I am your friend I may need to depend on you!  That’s how friendship works, any relationship really.  It’s give and take.  I talk you listen, you talk I listen!  It’s a marvelous concept and works well actually.  My earthly relationships work  so well that when I was in that big black hole last year, I had no other choice but to treat God the same way.  I was taking, taking, taking.  It was my turn to talk, talk, talk.  And he listened, listened, listened!  What an amazing feeling to pour out all your troubles to someone who you now loves you no matter what you say!  And it’s like you are having coffee and you are chatting and the waitress keeps coming back to top it off.  But you know how it is when you are out with a friend having coffee and you get that feeling that someone is waiting on your table or your kids or husbands are waiting at home on you to do something!  Well when I talk to God I have His full attention and our cup of coffee has been getting topped off for a long time now!  Our table is reserved for just us!  So just like any good friendship I have to take my turn!  It’s my turn to listen and the things I hear are amazing!  How I hear them?  You will probably think a little unconventional, definitely not God like!  But He created ALL things.  And trust me if He created it, He can talk through it and work through it!  A friend had shared a song with me on Thanksgiving Day.  A beautiful song, but the most amazing thing was that a 10 yr old girl is singing it! She sounds like she is 30.  So yesterday I am with my sister braving the elements of Black Friday which is kind of funny because the title of the song was Dark Waltz! Anyway, she decides to get a haircut so I say cool I am gonna sit in this other chair and put my head phones in while they do hair!  I look this little girl up on YouTube and watch her amazing woman voice come out of her tiny child body; The Dark Waltz.   Then that peaks my curiosity.  What else has she sang! So as I look for more I see where she sings with a famous opera singer.  I begin to listen to it!  So beautiful the voices that take the notes to an octave that I can only dream of.  But then I begin to hear past the angelic voice and “hear” the lyrics, “Time To Say Goodbye”.  I feel just a little tug at my heart and say OK enough of THAT song, NEXT!  Meanwhile Rita and her hairdresser are all this and that with a snip here and a snip there, like ¼ inch is really going to matter?  But Hello!  I do the good sister thing and give her a thumbs up, take off the head phones and tell them, “wonderful, looks good!”  Back with the head phones.  So I go back to YouTube and you all know if you pull up one child singer with a famous person you will get 10,000!  So here is another child singing with Celine Dion.  Beautiful again!  Singing for her mother who is there with her as she sings!  As the song ends once again I feel that tug at my heart as I listen to the lyrics, “Because You Loved Me”

“You were my strength when I was weak, You were my voice when I couldn’t speak, you were my eyes when I couldn’t see you saw the best there was in me.  Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach you gave me faith cause you believed, I’m everything I am because you loved me.

You were always there for me, the tender wind that carried me.  A light in the dark shining your love into my life, you’ve been my inspiration through the lies you were the truth.  My world is a better place because of you!  I’m everything I am because You loved me! 

I raise my head up as the tears start to sting my eyes and Rita and her hair dresser are still in “hair mode”.    Tuck it here, snip it there!  Trivial things!  But yet, still necessary every day moments that we call life!  Yes God talks to me through YouTube!  Just as sure as he talks to me in church on Sunday morning, He was talking to me through those songs!  Telling me, Yes, it’s time to say goodbye but not SADLY!  Say goodbye GLADLY!  I can say goodbye because he loved me!  Danny was my everything and I will carry him with me every day I go forward! He was my encourager, my inspiration, my eyes, my voice, my strength, the wind that carried me!  And yes my world is a better place because of him.  And not only my world but so many others!  God handpicked those songs for me to hear at that moment so that I could say goodbye.  I struggle with the whole “Christmas Spirit” thing!  I don’t like Christmas because that was Danny’s time!  He loved everything about it.  The excitement, the surprised, the wonder of it all!  The children, those young in age and young at heart!  Since he passed I just can’t find my Christmas spirit.  In December 2011 I bought a book called “The Spirit of Christmas”.  A childrens book complete with illustrations!  Because I knew in my heart this would be his last Christmas.  I never read it.  Didn’t want to!  And I was right, it was his last Christmas!  But this book has something for me!  I just don’t know what!  So I sat this book on a shelf in my Living Room!  It stays there all year!  Every season!  It has been there for 2 years, never moved, never opened, never read.  Last Sunday as I go to Jacob’s room to wake him up for church this book falls out of its spot that it has been for 2 years right in front of me!  So I pick it up and yes, acknowledge God with the fact that He put that before me!  “OK God, I get it!  I need to read the book!”  So I take it with me to church and I find time to read it between worship service and play practice.  I squeeze it in my schedule!  But that’s it!  I didn’t want to give it too much time because I knew there was something in there for me!  Well after I read it, I was like, “yeah nice” Christmas Spirit!  I know I need it!  But knowing it and getting it are two different things!  So after the Celine Dion song and trying to hold back the tears I take my head phones off and say alright God, enough of that today!  I came here to shop!  When I step back into reality of the beauty shop, Rita is almost finishing up.  Of course there is music playing inside the shop!  Back to the relationship with God, it’s still my turn to listen, listen, listen!  We are still topping off that cup of coffee!  Just because I said ENOUGH, didn’t mean He was finished talking.  And I have to listen!  After all He listened to me!  So the song playing as I fight back my tears and feel my heart breaking all over again is Faith Fill singing “Where Are You Christmas?”  You know God has to get that last word in!  He is telling me, “yes, it’s ok to say goodbye to Danny because he loved you so much that’s what he wanted for you!”  To move on and be happy!  And above all he wants me to find “My Christmas” not his Christmas spirit; he wants me to find my Christmas spirit!  So I jump out of my chair and tell them I have to get out of there before I cry all over the place and of course they have no idea what’s been going on in my chair!  Had no clue God was pouring it all over me!  So I go out to wait for Rita to finish up and there by the jewelry store I see a necklace with a cross-not just any necklace but the new style, a sideways cross!  Then I say, nice!  No sooner do I say that, turn around and a lady passes right in front of me with that very necklace on.  That sideways cross!  And it’s like ding ding ding ding!  THAT’S my Christmas Spirit!  It’s not the excitement or surprise!  It’s not the lights or tinsel! Not even the presents or the food!  As I read the book, The Christmas Spirit, yet again, right now, this is what it tells me about The Christmas Spirit!

He spoke to me then in a whisper of wings.  “There are gentle things the season brings.”  Snow that lies silent.  As quiet as a mouse. And all roads that lead to your grandmother’s house.  Ten lords – a leaping as seven swans swim.  And of course, Santa Claus, I’m just getting to him!  I lifted my chin and stared up at the ceiling.  I still wasn’t getting that warm Christmas feeling.  That’s when the spirit of Christmas smiled.  “Remember, this all began with a child.  Because it took nothing but love to begin it, it’s not really Christmas if love isn’t in it.”  Your tree may be large as the room will allow with a big yellow star on the uppermost bough, but of one thing I’m certain, I’m sure of one thing.  It is love that makes the angels sing.  And that’s when I got it.  That’s when I knew!  The thing that was missing from Christmas was you!                          Nancy Tillman, “The Spirit of Christmas”

Psalm 39:7

But now, Lord, what do I look for?  My hope is in you.

That’s my Christmas spirit!  My hope is in Christ Jesus who came to earth as a baby to give us a hope and a future!  But it doesn’t stop there, No!  He walked upon this earth just as we do, talked to his heavenly father, just as we do, and he worked all manner of miracles!  But even that wasn’t enough!  He loved, loved, loved!  He loved us so much He died for us!

John 3:16 (KJV)

¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

That’s my Christmas spirit!  So I may not have a tree with sparkling lights.  I may not have presents under the tree.  I won’t have a wreath on my door but I will have Jesus in my heart and that’s my Christmas spirit! 

My prayer and hope for each of you is that you find “your” Christmas spirit just as I found mine!  And while you are finding your Christmas spirit take just a few moments to find Jesus and let Him fill your heart!  Trust me; it’s the greatest gift of all!  And it will be the start of a beautiful friendship and an “endless cup of coffee”!

Merry Christmas!