Everywhere one look’s there is someone or something pushing you to think and buy a holiday something. If you don’t do it you are a scrooge. If you don’t get the very best you obviously don’t think much of the individual. If you don’t have the latest, best, most hip, awesome, and stunning present then obviously you haven’t really prepared properly! At my age I should be above it but needless to say I am stressing just like everyone else.
As usual, as soon as I reflect on my stress I find that I am actually stressing about a whole lot of things. I am worried about the future. I am confused at my role in many different parts of life. I am getting more gray hairs by the day due to my kids. It isn’t that anything is going bad or getting worse, I am just uncertain as to what is going to happen next and that causes me to worry! Even my relationship with God isn’t off limits. I am sure that someday Divinity is going to wake up and discover that I don’t fit the criteria for have God infused in my soul. Something will cause me to be rejected! That one thing will blow any opportunity that I might have. It may have never happened before, but, this could be the first.
There is something comforting about yesterday. I know I made a lot of mistakes. I know that I broke a few rules. Yet I made it. I survived to live another day with hope. I am not sure that the same will be true tomorrow so yesterday looks pretty good from this vantage point.
Sometimes it is very clear that I have lost the plot! I hear God’s voice saying that we should “relax, everything's going to be all right; rest, everything's coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!” (Jude 1.2) I know that it was with my holiday stress in mind that these words were captured. God is with us, even when we don’t believe.
