Well.....we did it!
We hit the shops running today......well, not quite running but slinking along trying to ignore the pain in my hip joints, the numbness in my arms, the burning heat in the back of my neck, and the weariness and fatigue that had been dragging me down ever lower all week.
And yes.....it was a great success! I am ALMOST finished! I say almost because, until the shops actually close on Christmas Eve, I will be convinced there's something else to get, someone I've forgotten in this festive season.
This year will be different though. I promise. I owe it to ME to make it different.
Now that the shopping is 95% complete, I will gift wrap my purchases - they will be neatly stacked and ready for delivery. I will write my cards THIS week - they will be mailed and on their way.
In the shops today people jostled, rushed about, bought impluse purchases for friends and loved ones. I just wonder how many of those selected gifts will be returned for exchange and refund - how much of our time and money have we spent shopping for people who have no real needs, and who know how much we love them all year through without us presenting them with gifts at Christmas.
I think of God's gift to us - the greatest gift ever given - HIS SON, the Lord Jesus Christ. The world is not jostling today, rushing, crushing, heaving through the crowds to receive this gift. And yet God has GIVEN His Son, freely, that we might become His children. He has made a way that we might be one with Him. A gift freely given, out of love, truly from the heart of God and yet the world rejects Him. Oh how we must hurt the very heart of God - HE LOVED, HE GAVE. As I consider the true meaning of Christmas admidst all the jostle and bustle of commercialism I can be thankful that Jesus is mine - this gift from the very heart of God and I am one with Him. Thank you Jesus.
