The Best Gift of the Year

December 24, 2014

Two months ago I checked my Pink Pad App and saw that "Aunt Flo" was due to come Christmas Day. The thoughts that ran through my head went something like this: "Dang nabbit! Isn't getting ready for Christmas hard enough? Aren't I already an emotional basket case for the entirety of December as it is?" The Christmas season is hard for me. The guilt about that is even harder. I LOVE Christmas and celebrating my Savior's birth. I LOVE the lights and the music and having my house cozy and decorated. I love choosing gifts for my family, paying attention to the little things they say or observing their interests and talents so I can surprise them with something really meaningful. I love wrapping presents and making each one a unique little work of art, matching papers and ribbons and even coordinating the tissue paper inside. I absolutely adore making (and eating) decorated sugar cookies, designing Christmas cards, envisioning and carrying out fun family pictures and then writing a Christmas letter that includes our funny sayings for the year. I love serving people and giving money to the Salvation Army bell ringer at Wal-mart. And I love making handmade gifts: crocheting, sewing, making family calendars, ornaments and every sort of Christmas doodad you could imagine. I love playing all of my Christmas music on the piano and accompanying the church choir for our Christmas service. I just love it all! Hence, the problem. I want it all and I'm very specific and elaborate in my vision of what the perfect Christmas is.  I wonder why reality seems to fall short? (That was sarcasm in case you missed it.) 

I do recognize that I have a problem (that's the first step in recovery for any addiction), but Christmas is so incredibly special, it is really hard to let go of even one of these lovely things. As happens with all irrational behavior and expectations, stubbornly insisting on hanging on to all of the "trappings" comes around to bite me in the end. It all quickly falls apart and I end up exhausted, sick and disillusioned on Christmas morning, wanting so badly to just feel close to my Savior and to radiate His love; but instead, projecting the message to my kids that Christmas is an overwhelming, stressful, guilt-ridden time of year that brings out the worst in their mother.

Over the past several years it has been my mission to change the outcome of my Christmas mania and I have made some progress. I was hopeful coming into this year that it would be even better than ever, until that perky pink app on my phone crushed my hopes with a red circle around the 25th on the calendar. Well, expecting to fail is not the way to go into things and thank heavens I didn't entertain that thought for long. Because of all I've learned in my emotional healing education program, I've been able to diffuse and deal with stresses as they've arisen and arrive here on the morning before Christmas still feeling peaceful and grounded.

One example happened last Sunday -- the day of our Christmas church service. As it happens, I was the organist for our worship service as well as the pianist for the choir and for a small group of women singing in the women's meeting later. I'd prepared and prayed and practiced and arrived at the chapel feeling relaxed and ready. Ironically, I'd even been chatting with the boys in the car on the way over about how much easier it was for me to accompany people now that I'd done so much emotional healing and knew to stay present and grounded when I started to get nervous. How could I tempt fate by making that observation just before it all began?! Well, I did and I soon had to eat my words. As the choir warmed up, I fumbled a little over one of the harder arrangements, which led to feeling a little shaky and making more mistakes, feeling shakier and more worried and...you get the picture. 

I usually use an essential oil blend called Balance in exactly these situations that calms and grounds me, but I didn't have it with me. So, I played the opening hymn and sat through the first part of the service feeling so unsettled and dreading the choir numbers so much that I wanted to cry. During the adminstering of the sacrament I decided the only thing to do was to pray -- really pray and give all of it to Christ. I told God very specifically what I needed to get rid of: fear, frustration, despair, shame, the shakiness and uncertainty and doubting myself; and I asked Him to send it to His Son to be changed into light and peace and confidence and feeling His enabling power filling me up. As I named these things a warmth came into my heart and spread through my body with such love and peace that it was almost tangible. All the negative energy fled as Christ replaced it with His light and power. I could see Him in my mind's eye with His hands on my head and I could almost feel guardian angels surrounding me. My heart nearly overflowed with gratitude! As I played, it wasn't perfect, but it was nearly so and I stayed calm and confident and was able to support the choir who sang beautifully, with angels I'm sure. What an incredible, miraculous blessing!

I've had several such experiences this month, though none quite as profound as what I just described. I've felt so much peace as I've made Christmas preparations. I've felt myself going into the darkness feeling overwhelmed and despairing and I've been able to call on Christ to pull me out and He has. I've been able to let go of some of my perfect visions of Christmas splendor and allow a less perfect but also less stressful version come forward: like when my boys offered to wrap the presents and I let them! They're not the way I would have done it, but they look pretty darn good and I didn't have to wrap all the presents for eight other people (that's an immense amount of wrapping, let me tell you!) Or like the fact that the Christmas cards are going out on Friday, because who wants the fun to end right? I've been led to just the right store and just the right things when I needed to get the shopping done and didn't have any time to spare. I've had ideas come into my mind that were just the right thing for a gift so I didn't have to stress. Each time I've started to feel the tension, I've just said a little prayer and been given a tender mercy that made the path a little smoother.

The point to this musing is my realization that I have been given the greatest gift of Christmas this year: Jesus Christ! It is the atonement of Jesus Christ which allows Him to take on my pain, suffering, frustration, fear and despair. And He doesn't just take all of this, he takes it and replaces it with His peace and His power to climb the mountains I need to climb! My Heavenly Father gave the gift of His beloved Son so that I could travel through the wilderness of this earth life with hope and joy despite the hardship and sorrow. He must love me so much to have been willing to watch Christ endure unimaginable pain and anguish as He completed His mission. And there's no doubt in my mind or heart that Christ loves me with a depth I can't even begin to comprehend. He knows me, because he's taken on all my "stuff" willingly so I don't ever have to walk alone, stumbling along hopeless and lost. He is the gift this Christmas that has made all the difference! I testify that I KNOW He lives! With every fiber of my being I know Him and feel Him with me. Maybe all of the hustle and bustle is here to teach me that what I really want and need is His peace and His love. Well, I'm feeling it now and my heart is happy.