Merry Christmas eveybody! I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season. Things have been going well for me and God has been blessing. We just got through with our christmas banquets here at PGPC in Sebastopol, MS. I was able to help with the entertainment, one of my hobbies. I'll try to post some pictures when possible. I just wanted to take a moment to share this with you.
This is a time of year that is a happy and joyful occasion. The mood is always light and people tend to be positive. This time of year holds many great memories of christmas in the past. Times that we gathered together with family. For one single day, we forgot about all of our problems and cares, and it seemed that everything was right in the world.
But if you would take a moment and journey with me to another house not far from your's, or perhaps to the other side of town, maybe even on the other side of the world. To the man that is down on his luck and work has long since run out. He stumbles through the night wondering how he will ever make it in this cold and cruel world. No one extends a helping hand or offers a word of encouragement. Perhaps the only person that said merry christmas to him was the salvation army attendant ringing their bell.
I see a light glowing in an upstairs apartment window on the darker side of town. A young mother sits with her child. The husband and father long gone, unwilling to commit himself to being a provider. This great burden has fallen upon her and she hardly seems to be able to withstand the weight of it. She doesn't fit in her church. The youth look at her like she is filth, the young couple's feel that she is not apart of their group. While everyone lavishes in prosperity and happiness, she struggles to work two or three jobs to have a somewhat decent christmas for her little girl. People pass her all day long, but in the midst of the crowd she feels alone and as an outcast. There is nothing merry about christmas to her, just the worst pain and loneliness imaginable.
As the fog moves in on this cold december night, I see a man sitting alone on a park bench. A street light shining above him. While he speaks no words, one can feel that this is a somber and dark moment. As he left work that afternoon, everyone in the office slapped backs and high fived each other, happy to be off work and talking about what christmas had in store for them. No one seemed to notice how he hung back, out of character for this individual. You see, it was hard for him to join the festivities, knowing that his boss just fired him. He walks outside of the office. His head swirling, his mind going a thousand different directions. He has a wife and kids to think about after all. It had been a hard year already, what would his wife say? What would his kids think? He left his car in the parking lot and started walking. "If I can't do any better than this for my family, then what am I doing? They don't need me! What a failure I have been to them!! I could just end it all, they don't need me any more!"
Up ahead on the distance, a subway car slows to a stop. A father and his children climb aboard. His kids seem rather rambuctious. A man sitting across from the family seems annoyed by it. The father sits there with a dazed expression on his face, oblivious to how his kids are behaving. the kids just sem to be a little out of control. People move away from them. The father does nothing to stop them. To everyone around he seems uncaring and unconcerened. The other passenger sits there and bites his tongue as long as he possibly can, but his aggravation gets the better of him. Hey speaks up "Sir, your children are out of control! Can't you do something about it?!" The father seems to awaken out of a fog. He looks around at his children and says to the man, "I'm sorry sir, you see, there mother just died, and we were heading home from the hospital. I guess none of us know how to cope with it just yet. Please forgive us."
Perhaps you've encountered these people as you've shopped and joined the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. What did you do? Did you have a kind word for them? Or perhaps we were preoccupied with other things. Christmas to some people is a horrible memory, and a dark and lonely time. But let us rember one thing this Christmas season, that Jesus Christ is the only one that can bring joy and peace. And if we are the light of the world, then let your light shine and put the Merry back into someone's Christmas.
-God Bless
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