This week's give-away is for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. (It's a Gregory Family tradition to have Daniel read this aloud to us every Christmas Eve...and for him to choke up at the end!) 3 names will be drawn -- enter via the Rafflecopter at the end of the blog post or click here to enter!
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“I don’t want to feel pressured by anybody or myself (especially) to do anything that my heart truly isn’t into! I want to do holiday things because it is valuable to my spiritual heart. I want to do things with Jesus in mind. I want to have a desire to do things because my heart is in it, not because something is expected of me.
I am negative when I do things without checking in with my Lord first, to see if it is something He wants me to do. If it is something He wants me to do, and I don’t want to do it, then I ask Him to gently change my heart, so I want to do whatever it may be.
The holidays for me are wonderful and so much fun. But I get bogged down in all the DOING, and lose sight of my heart being in the right place as I am DOING.
Does that make sense?”
Ingrid
Ingrid
Makes perfect sense to me!
I’ve been a teacher and a pastor’s wife for almost a quarter of a century.
For me, December has meant DOING the school Christmas program.
Then DOING the church Christmas program.
Then DOING first semester grades before Christmas vacation started.
For ten years, I was a Sales Director for a direct sales company.
Up to ½ of my yearly business happened in the last two months of the year.
So I was DOING as many home parties as possible.
I was DOING daytime boutiques and fairs.
I was DOING last-minute deliveries (often on Christmas Eve!)
How I wish I’d been intentional about having a Holiday-Ready Heart when my children were young.
They witnessed me scurrying from here to there to somewhere else. I was DOING...
- so that my employers would be impressed.
- so that my students would make me look good.
- so that church members would see me “doing my part.”
- so that the company would reward me with money, recognition, and a trip to Hawaii.
I wonder what those years would have been like if I’d been responding rather than doing. Responding not so that but just
- because of Jesus’ overwhelming love.
- because of the God-given gifts and unique abilities of my students.
- because I am part of the body of Christ.
- because I had life-changing products to share.
I know I can’t go back and change the past.
But I’m determined to learn from it.
Having “A Holiday-Ready Heart” means that I’m going to make very different holiday choices.
Less doing.
More responding.
Less doing.
More responding.
(I’m so done with “so that”!)
Your Turn:
- What "so that"s seem to drive holiday choices for you?
- What "just because"s would you rather respond to?
- Anything else on your heart!
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