First Baptist Church of Herndon

Pretty intense

Linda Soller | Dec 21, 2015

In case you haven’t noticed the Christmas season can be pretty intense. Everything is exaggerated. The frenetic pace of our society finds a way to actually speed up. The pressures you felt to meet others’ expectations weigh even heavier as you shop for gifts. If you aren’t invited to social events, you may feel sad. If you are invited to social events, you may feel sad about losing your down time, your me time. It’s like everything has been pumped up, given a new significance, and allowed to control your life. Maybe you are feeling out of control, and your emotions are running high.

In the Advent Conspiracy we are discussing at FBC we are challenged to think what it would be like if we took back Christmas. What if we simply stopped spending so much on gifts? What if we took our blessings and gave them to those less blessed? What if social time was not seen as a requirement or a return of a favor, but as a time to really connect? It all sounds well and good here in this little blog, but in reality it’s so much harder. 

In the Drop-In class we are discussing our Christmas stockings. With a liberal dose of metaphors, we are looking at Christmas through new stocking stuffers. Lumps of coal for the adversities we meet, overcome, and how they fuel our futures. Notes for the messages of love, forgiveness, and hope which surround us at Christmas, like the Angels surrounded the Shepherds. Sweets, those things that we enjoy and savor in the moment, but all too quickly forget.  Our stockings offer up the unexpected, much like life.

It was a winter’s night, in a tiny stable, full of animals, and hay, and a family. It was a very new, very small family. They had little but each other, and a Promise from God.  The Promise lay there sleeping in the manager. The Promise which would save us all, if we would just let him. Now I call that pretty intense.

Merry Christmas!  :o)  Linda