cynicism

Christmas In the Eyes of a Child

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“Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing” (from The Santa Clause).

I think the reason so many don’t like Christmas is that they’ve stopped seeing it through the eyes of a child.

Christmas isn’t so much for children as it is for the childlike. I don’t mean the childish who pout every time they don’t get their own way.

I mean the childlike, the ones who never stop believing in good and right and magic and happy endings. The ones who see more than just the physical and still have room for miracles and pixie dust. The ones who still have the ability to be amazed and astonished at life.

Jesus said that anyone who wanted to enter the Kingdom of God must do so as a little child. Whoever really wants to experience all that God is must go back to before the cynicism took root, before disillusionment set in, to when just about anything was possible, because for God, anything IS possible.

So let’s go back to the faith of a child.  Let us once again rediscover the ability to be amazed and astonished by the wonder that is Advent and Christmas and the miracle that made it all possible.

“Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: “Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place”?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts and says, “Yes,
let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here–
in this place”  (Leslie Leyland Fields from Let the Stable Still Astonish).

Snapshots of Grace

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I went to a birthday party of a friend of mine tonight. She turned the big 3-0. Been there, done that, found out it’s not so bad.

She had helium balloons floating in one of the rooms with pictures tied to them. Each one was a picture of her at some point in her life, with some showing her as a kid, some as a teen, and the more recent ones showing her all grown up.

I was captivated by that idea. I think each of us are defined in many ways by defining moments in our lives– snapshots, if you will. Those are the events in our lives that we remember as if we’re looking at a Polaroid taken at that very moment.

For me, it was the moment I found out about my granddad’s passing. Or when my boss called me into his office after the first plane had struck the World Trade Center building on September 11, 2001.

I can also remember walking across the stage to accept my diploma in my graduation ceremony from Union University.

That’s just it. You don’t get to pick your memories. You don’t get to pick how many good or bad ones you’ll have. You do get to choose  what you do with those memories and how you look at them. How you look at life through them.

The old cliche is true. You can take the bad memories from your life and either let them make you bitter or better. You can choose cynicism and unbelief or you can choose forgiveness and faith.

Some of my best memories are of the friends I’ve made, including the friend who just turned 30. Others involve my family. More often than not– nearly all of the time– the best memories will involve people and not possessions or accomplishments.

I choose to believe the best about others and bring it out of them because that’s what Jesus did for me. I choose to trust that God can take the worst moments of my life and make them the first part of my testimony to how good God is and how He can turn a wreck into something beautiful.

I think I’ll have one more good set of memories after tonight.

A Nice Surprise

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iphone-5-lightning-connector

I got a pleasant surprise today. No, it wasn’t my birthday and no, it wasn’t a surprise party, although I do like those. Hint, hint. . .

My iPhone’s been acting up. By that, I mean, I couldn’t get it to charge properly. I took it to the Verizon store where the rep told me I probably would need a new phone. He told me to try the Apple Store first.

Thankfully, I did. The issue, as it turns out, was only some pocket lint that got into the charging port of the phone and kept it from connecting. That was all.

Those are the little blessings that I used to take for granted. Now, I try to look for the good, the little blessings, and the joy around me. I usually find at least something every day.

I do think you get what you look for. If you’re always looking for things to go badly, they most likely will. If you look through eyes of cynicism, you’ll see what you want to see and find enough wrong with the world to keep your unbelief going strong.

I don’t think my optimism makes me any better than anyone else. It’s just less stressful and less tiring than the opposite. Beside, I dare you to read the Bible and not see how the Good ultimately triumphs in the end.

Oh, and a big thank you to Laura, who figured out the whole lint issue. I have to give props when they are truly due.

Life is still good, God is still great, and I am still blessed.

PS As it  turns out, I needed a new charging cord as well. That’s still waaay cheaper than a new phone. Still a win in my book.