A Different Way to Deal with the Holidays! :)

First - a note on our kids, Kelli and John.  We have talked to them and seen them (thank you, skype) and they are doing great. You can check out the latest in their blog (on the right).  Thank you for praying for them!!

Now to a totally unrelated topic.... do you ever just feel ticked off?  Of course, none of us grammies do, as we have reached the peak of maturity, right?  Okay, another myth shattered - grammies may still have tempers.  

And we can all get a little irritated - and especially at this time of year.   Here we are, trying to make Christmas all perfect for everyone, and something happens that sets us off, ruins our day (and probably the day of anyone living in the house with us). 

I had a friend who used to say “everybody is playing their own home movies” - we all have a picture in our mind of how things are supposed to be, and when something happens that messes with our “home movie”, it’s hard to get past it.  And with all those home movies playing in everyone’s heads - there are bound to be collisions, which lead to being “ticked off”, which can lead to unhappy days - holiday or not.

I had this happen to me recently - I got seriously ticked off - and no, not at anyone in my family.  :)  There was no yelling or screaming.  While at some point earlier in my life (like last year), you would immediately know if you had ticked me off, now I have developed the ability to just simmer, rather than fly off the handle.  Actually, this isn’t all bad - definitely better than exploding!  But I walked away from the situation and did a slow burn, playing it over and over in my head, thinking of how the whole thing was just WRONG (ever feel like that?), and trying to decide how I would address it  - also known as “getting even.”  :)

Then it came to me - Matthew 5:44 (the scripture reference didn’t come to me, but the words “despitefully used” did).  Normally, my brain prefers New Living or New International versions of the Bible, but those words are from the King James version:

But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Here I was, trying to plan how to deal with the situation - because you can’t just let things slide, you need to honestly confront, right?  But the words to Matthew 5:44 just kept playing over and over in my head.  

Here, the example God gives is much more drastic than what I was dealing with.  The person I was angry with wasn’t an enemy, they hadn’t cursed me, they didn’t hate me, they hadn’t despitefully used me or persecuted me.  But even if they had done all of those things - God’s instruction is to love them, bless them, do good to them, pray for them.  WOW.  Not exactly my natural instinct.

In my situation, a very good friend had not handled a situation the way I thought it should be handled. It was that simple. I was offended and ready to give them an earful, which would have started a chain reaction of ugly - which is sadly what we often end up with during the holidays. Not the home movie we want, is it?

I don’t always get it right, but this time, I chose Matthew 5:44 - to love, bless, do good and pray.  And I am planning to do that more often in the future.  I would highly recommend that you try it, as well.  It may be the best gift we can give to our family and friends this year!