Monday, December 26, 2011

Was it all you hoped for?

How was your Christmas day? Was it all you hoped for? We can set ourselves up with such high expectations of the perfect day that it is hard to achieve that day especially when you get multiple people involved it pulling that day off. Everyones expectations are different. Everyone has their own agenda of what they want the day to look like and feel like. It can lead to disappointments and feelings of dispair.

This time of year is hard for so many people who have lost loved ones, especially when that loss comes close to Christmas. Grief is felt, lost love is felt more deeply. Changes in location or job status can cause stress and tension. No one wants to think about the sadness associated with the holidays but it is so real for so many people. The hurt, the loneliness, the emptiness. All there waiting to engulf you and usually at the most inopportune times. We must remember that Jesus was born, He came into this world to bring His light. To replace the hurt with joy and peace, to replace the loneliness with fellowship and the emptiness with purpose.

We have a choice to make, to continue on the road we are on and continue to reap the harvest from that path or take a new course, one that leads to new life and renewed strength and purpose. I suggest that as this year wraps up in this last week that you reflect on this year past and dream big for the New Year. We all have regrets but we don't have to continue making those same choices that lead to those same regrets. As we change the calendar page and see the possibilities that a fresh page into a new year can offer we need to reassess our own actions. If they are not leading us to the life that we dreamed of then we need to change directions and get on the road that will lead us there.

Think about your new year ahead of you. What are you wanting to do to change the direction that you are going in? Figure out what you can do and start doing it. If something doesn't work then try something else.

You might think that with all this reflection that my Christmas day was a disappointment, but nothig could be further from the truth. I had a wonderful Christmas with family, very little stress and lots of good food.
Be good to yourself and to someone else today.