I have a love hate relationship with something and I want to share it with you. I don't know if maybe you feel the same way. You can let me know either way if you want to go to the Facebook group or on Instagram and send me a direct message that let me know. How do you feel about Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol? How do you feel about that? I have mixed feelings about it. Every year I have mixed feelings about it. I suspect I actually like it, but I don't. Whenever my husband says, oh, do you want to watch this? I'm like, no, I don't want to watch this, but yet I do. It's so bizarre.
Here's why: I do love the messaging. I do love the many versions that I've seen of A Christmas Carol. I've read the book. I've seen it with Jim Carrey. I've seen it with Henry Winkler. I've seen it with cartoon characters. I mean, I've seen a Christmas Carol and I've actually read the Dickens story. There's value in all of it. The story is not missed. The story being that how we live impacts people's lives and being generous and helping people impacts them. We can impact them for good or for bad. The way we live our lives matters. In the end, what do we want to be known for? What do we want to have accomplished?
This is good, deep stuff, especially for someone like me who has a therapy background where it's like, well, of course I love talking about the stuff that makes life really important and significant. I don't do small talk. I do deep talk. I really love deep talk. Yet this is dark and it's inspirational. It's like when I read Holocaust books not because I like reading about the Holocaust, but because I like reading about how the human spirit and faith in God and people under the direst of circumstances caring for each other is inspirational. It's both awful and inspirational. Dickens' A Christmas Carol is both dark and inspirational because life often has more than one feeling at the same time, more than one observation at the same time.
It got me thinking about if I'm feeling this way, where, oh, I remember these things of Christmas past that were so good and you might be too. If you're feeling nostalgia towards the things of the past and you are sad because they're not here today and you wish that they were, I want to encourage you that it can be both. It can both be that it's not like it was, and it can be that you can enjoy today as well. It can be that you can make good memories today for tomorrow, so when you or your kids or grandkids look back, they can see these were the good old days for them. That doesn't mean that the future days in their present or your present in the future won't be good for you too. Both can coexist.
I want to talk about that today in the sense that, just like with a Christmas Carol, I can have both a love/hate relationship with it. I can take the good from it, and I cannot like a lot of the stuff that makes me sad or want to cringe when I watch it, right? We can do that with our lives. When we look back and we think about how great things were or even how bad things were, I mean, some people did not have a great Christmas historically. If that's you, you can do this kind of in reverse of what I'm saying as well. You get to places where you look back and things either aren't like that now and you wish they were, or they're better now and you're glad they aren't like that.
What do we do with it when we feel like we're remembering something and it's bringing up something unpleasant, like longing or sadness or regrets or a hope for something that we can no longer have, like people to be with us that can't be here anymore. I want to encourage you to look at those things as something you can do something about in the present. Because when we get wistful, when we look back, we're forgetting that those things help contribute to who we are today. When you can see who we are today. Just like Scrooge, right? He was able to look back with the Ghost of Christmas Past and go, that's how I live my life. That's what led to this stuff. I can change it going forward. Well, it's the same thing with good stuff, but we can't get stuck in the past wishing for those good things and missing out on today's good stuff.
I want you to realize, just like with me and having both a love/hate relationship with A Christmas Carol, you can have both feelings. You can have feelings of nostalgia and longing and grief and loss and sadness. And at the same time, hope and excitement and new experiences and new traditions can await you as well. It's not the end of the story whether the past was good or the past was bad.
If it was good, you can carry it with you. Bring Grandma's favorite recipes to the table. Play a game like you used to play when you were a kid. Bring out the old movies for a little bit.
If it was bad, do something to gain what you didn't have back then. Maybe you didn't get toys, so take yourself out and get yourself something nice. Maybe you didn't have a church family, so go to a church service today. Maybe you didn't have supportive network, so find a support group somewhere.
Don't let the past or your emotions, whether positive or negative, whether abundance or lack, take away from the fact that you are a human being who can experience all of the awarenesses, positive and negative, good and bad, abundance and lack, and they can coexist. Today you get to acknowledge the fact that, yep, that's your experience. Simply part of the human experience, right?
The Bible says to forget the former things, God is doing a new thing. It also talks about remembrance, and I think that's indicative of a place for both leaving behind what is past and pressing forward to the goals in Christ Jesus, but also being informed. We have scripture to look back so that we know the story of where we came from and where we are today. Both are important, but it's the story that you and God are writing today that is where you have your power.
Don't be like the one relative that I have who lost her mom and then all of a sudden didn't go out for special occasions on holidays like, oh, no, I'm not going out. Her mother's the one who died. She acted like she did. She still had time to enjoy, and yet she wouldn't celebrate with anybody because she just wanted to stay home. I get that sometimes you feel like staying home, but this was almost like she set up a shrine and said, my mother died, so I can't go out for the holidays. I want to encourage you that that is not how you have to live. You can both honor somebody or honor a memory and bring the life they lived or the good things from the memory with you into the future or learn from it and do something with it in the present, in the future that makes it good or helps you remember or makes you feel better and honors somebody's memory without losing your present power, your present self. Because the future, when you look back, these are going to be the good old days or the days that you're like, oh, that was really rough.
What you do today becomes tomorrow's past. Just be real about it. It can coexist and that can give you peace. Because you don't have to try to pretend everything's perfect. You don't have to get everything perfect for the holidays. Holidays are not perfect. They're human things. Humans are involved in them; therefore, they're not going to be perfect. The fact that they are perfect is the fact that they're imperfect. We know that the holidays are going to have some highs and some bumps in the road, and that's okay. When we can accept that both exist and we don't have to get stuck, we don't have to make it like, oh, everything's ruined because the turkey got burnt. So what? That becomes a good memory.
Going forward, don't take yourself or life too seriously. Enjoy today and be wise about the story you tell yourself. It's not often either or. Highs and lows can coexist. Good memories and sad memories and present hopes and futures of hope can exist, as can stressors. It's okay to know that this is just part of the human experience. It doesn't have to throw me, but I can grieve when I need to, I can celebrate when I want to, I can remember as I wish, and I can move on and do new things. It's all healthy, flexible empowerment. I hope that helps lighten your load today for the holidays!
If you like snow and winter, I am so happy for you because that must be amazing to have that as something to enjoy in your winter arsenal. But for me, it's very, very difficult. In fact, I'm not certain that I may actually have seasonal affective disorder to a mild degree. I actually find the dark days of winter and snow and cold and getting dark earlier rough for me. I have to intentionally choose to bring light and joy and happiness into my surroundings. It's not necessarily that anything has changed except my perception. My being, the way I feel in time and space and my environment and just inside my own skin is affected by whether it is sunny and bright or cloudy and overcast and cold and snowy.
I don't mind snow if there's sunshine and there's no ice on the road, so t's more the fact of the dark bleakness. I know some people find that romantic and they love that. I'm okay with the occasional rainy day. I'm okay with the occasional nice snowstorm that's in the evening, and then you wake up and the sun is shining. But I don't do well with day after day of gray skies, early dark, snow, and ice. It's just not my thing.
Whether you agree with my dislike or you actually enjoy it, I know there is something for me that the sunshine does. The sunshine just makes things better. Now, that doesn't mean I like it totally in my eyes all the time or beating down on me, making me sweat, but if I had to choose between snow in dark, bleak, gray, and snow with sunlight, I'm going to choose sunlight and snow every time (even if I have to wear sunglasses like I'm doing right now, because the glare is so bright).
I want you to think about those things in your life that affect you and your environment. It might not be the weather, it might not be the scenery, might not be sunshine or snow, but maybe it's music, maybe it's people, maybe it's places, maybe it's things, right? There are certain things that will lift our spirits and certain things that make us feel defeated or down or bleak.
Let the Sunshine In
What I want to speak to today is that we need to cultivate with intention those things that bring our minds peace and our hearts joy. For me, let the sunshine in! There was a song in the Flintstones cartoon reruns when I was a kid. It went like this: Let the sunshine in. Face it with a grin. I thought, I like that song. It has the word sunshine in it. Also, one of my first songs I knew as a kid was, "You Are My Sunshine." It is something that has gone back with me as long as I know and as long as I can remember. I like to think of sunshine as God's light. I know that God put that light in the sky, and when I think about sunshine, sometimes I even make the "u" into an "o". I want the sun to shine on me. God, Jesus, His light to shine in my life, because it makes everything better. It takes away the bleakness; it takes away the mundane.
Does This Bring Me Life or Death?
If you can pinpoint something, whether it's sunshine, whether it's your faith in Jesus, which I hope it is, if you're listening to this podcast for certain, that that probably is something that we have in common, and that's a non-negotiable. Then these other things, like our environment, the people around us, and the things we choose to read or watch or do, can either breathe life or death. It says in the Bible that life or death is in the power of the tongue. I believe that that's true. I also believe that what we focus on can bring us life or death. Metaphorically speaking. We can choose to have things in our lives that bring us joy, that cultivate joy, that cultivate hope, and that cultivate encouragement. So maybe turn off that thing that is draining you or causing you to fear. Maybe turn on some praise music or some favorite happy pop music or whatever that is for you. Maybe dance or exercise, or go for a walk with a friend, or go exercise, watch some cartoons, do some art project. Bring joy, bring happiness. Cultivate focus.
When I'm holed up in my home with snow all over the ground and too cold to go out and just not feeling very energetic, I try to focus on what my input is, what I read, what I watch, who I spend time with, and what we do when we spend time together. Those are the things that give life. If you're feeling discouraged today, if the winter doldrums have gotten you down, if you're going through a rough patch in life, I want you to remember that you can always make a choice to look for something good in your life, in your environment, and make an intention to have it, even during the bleakest times. It may simply be that you pick up one thing at the store that brings you joy, make yourself a nourishing meal, allow yourself the pleasure of a nice nap or a good call with an old friend, take your dog for a walk while picking up something that just makes you smile to look at it, or go outside and breathe in the fresh air and just spend time in God's presence.
Better Days Are Coming
Sometimes the bleakness sneaks up on you, and if the bleakness has snuck up on you and you're like, wait a minute, I'm more down than I am up, take a moment and intentionally choose what you will do each day that is going to bring life until you do that so often that better days are coming. My grandmother always said, better days are coming, Michelle. Better days are coming, and my grandfather always said, up above the clouds, the sun is shining. I think those are so true. We just have to hold on. I'm going back to my 80s roots here, my teenage 80s roots with the song, "Hold On." It's like, hold on for one more day...things will go your way. I love that song. That song is so important in its messaging, because sometimes we feel like we just can't take one more thing.
Just do one thing to cultivate joy in your life. One more thing to focus and hold on to the Lord until you do it again and again until the sun starts to shine for you. The sunshine will come out. Jesus is still Jesus, and He loves you, and He has good for you and a good plan for your life.
If it doesn't feel like it right now, choose your focus, choose your actions, choose what you do and who you spend time with, and look for the good. Make something good. When I feel that way and I'm cooped up in the house, I love the fireplace and I can cozy up with my favorite blanket and a book. Oh, look, here's the dog! I can have a nice conversation with somebody. I can go clean something that makes me feel all fresh and alive.
Whatever it is that's in your hands to do, you can choose to do it to the glory of God, and you can do it for joy. Building light into your day, day after day, until you get into a sunnier season of life. I hope that helps you today. Just to be encouraged that better days are coming. The sun is shining up above the clouds. Whether you do that with an S-U-N or ultimately S-O-N, Jesus is shining. He still has good for you. Just hold on for one more day.
