By April Terry (personal blog at http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

With the approach of the holiday season, we spend a lot of time thinking about how we are going to spend the holidays and with whom.  It’s a season of giving that causes us to reflect on the reasons why we celebrate the season.  Some of us want to fight to preserve our reason for the season, while others of us just want to survive the crowds and the bills.  Sometimes, along the way, the season of love loses its most precious commodity.

It was one year several years ago that I learned what it means to let go and let be during this time.  I had been consumed with the planning and execution of the most perfect Christmas dinner, but things didn’t go as planned.  Not everyone had returned for the meal when the prime rib was ready and just as we all sat down to eat, one of the little ones picked a glass ornament from my perfectly trimmed tree and threw it at the table.  It hit the back of a chair and shattered into hundreds of pieces on the floor.  I didn’t handle it well and all I remember is saying the “s-word” a whole lot.  A lot of family members were offended that fine year, but they are a forgiving bunch.  They still returned to my table and I was able to give them better meals in a better way in later years.

That was the year that I learned for the first time that it wasn’t about the food.  It was about the people at the table.  I learned that I would never enjoy a holiday meal if I didn’t learn how to execute the meal without making an effort to enjoy it myself.  I have enjoyed it since then and I think it has made a difference to my family members as well. 

Shopping and family gatherings are part of the joy of the holiday season for many of us.  They are an opportunity to find some token or event that will bring family members together and bring them joy.  Sometimes, in trying to find that joy, we think that it’s the gift or gathering that is important.  It’s an easy mistake to make, but we can’t afford to lose sight of the love that permeates this season and causes hearts to open like an orchid in bloom. 

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By April Terry (personal blog at http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

We were listening to an oldies station when “One Tin Soldier” started to play.  As the familiar strands of the 70’s folk song passed through ears and directly into my memory, I remembered that it had been particularly meaningful to me as a young girl.  “This is one of those songs that really made me think about morality and the importance of living peacefully,” I remarked to my husband, and he nodded his head in agreement.   We talked about how songs can often edify us in unexpected ways, in spiritual ways. 

If songs can edify people, think how much more we can also edify people in conversation and actions.  Even though, I haven’t always managed it, I have tried to live, write, and act in a way that edifies others.  I have always felt a strong sense of what my part is in other’s stories.  I have always thought that I had really two choices—either I would edify others or I would do the opposite. 

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by April Terry (personal blog http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

Whenever I get together with family, I start to think about all the little moments that, when strung together like a string of brilliant lights, decorate the Christmas tree of my life.  Yes, already I am thinking of Christmas and the holidays, but maybe not the in the way you might expect.  I am thinking about the moments of my life that have made up who I am and why I do what I am doing and why I am where I am.  All of those moments have come together like a perfectly orchestrated symphony to compose my purpose, a purpose that I am trying to live each day.

I have friends who think they don’t have a purpose, though, and even my Christian friends sometimes tell me that they don’t feel a purpose in their lives.  I sometimes think they are looking too hard.  I think they need to look a little more at the obvious.  We all have a purpose, but what if, in the end, it turns out that we all actually have the same purpose?  What if we learn that our purpose is so simple we nearly missed it completely?  What if our purpose is to love others as ourselves?

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