What Christmas means to me...

At church on Sunday, our pastor asked the question, ‘what does Christmas mean to you?’ and got people to come up and write it on boards. It made me think about how much my view has changed over the years and it surprised me what my instant thoughts were.

When I was growing up, getting dragged to the nearest Catholic Church every Christmas Eve was the only “churchy” thing I did each year. Even then, us kids would spend the night outside playing tag or throwing rocks from a distance and trying to get them to land into the holy water basins that stood in the doorways (I’m the pope’s worst night mare). I heard about the Christmas story in our weekly RE classes in primary school but it never really effected me. M mum infected us with a love of Christmas when we were young, so every December we would go way overboard decorating the house and singing loudly along to our huge collection of Christmas CD’s (we have over 30 Christmas CD’s and it still grows each year!) but it was all about the presents and the holidays, nothing more.

Christmas for me growing up meant a day of no fighting. It normally consisted of sugar highs, epic water fights that lasted for hours and way too much food, but the highlight was always no fighting. No one was angry at each other, and we actually liked being together for once.

To be honest that is still the first though that comes to my head when I think of Christmas, but now days since becoming a Christian in high school, it means so much more. To me it means we have a future because of the sacrifice made my Jesus, that I am forgiven and made new, and that I have hope. God made a way, only through the birth and death of his son Jesus, to get to heaven and have eternal life. I think that’s pretty special.

What do you think of when you think of Christmas? Is it all about the presents? Or is it about the king of the universe?

Merry Christmas

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16

Judgemental-ness

Ok, so I don’t know about you, but in my friendship group there are a few people that get on my nerves - a lot! I instantly judge them every time they do something annoying or irritating. I actually find it really hard to be around them, let alone be pleasant to them. If you’ve never experienced this, you’ll probably thinking I’m a horrible person by now, but from talking to a few of my close friends about this, I’ve found a lot of people feel this way about at least one person in their lives.

So what do we do about it? Most times (or so I’ve found in my life) it turns into gossip. I start complaining to my friends about how annoying some people are and they join in and so it starts. But how many times in the bible does it warn against this? Just thinking about it I can name a few. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” – Matthew 7:1, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone” – John 8:7. Anyone who’s been at church or reading the bible would have come across them at one point or another, yet how many of us actually live by that?

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. – Matthew 7:2-5

I once heard that a lot of the time, the traits that annoy us about other people are traits that are (even in just a small way) present in ourselves. For a long time I didn’t understand that, I never looked at myself as critically as I looked at others. That soon changed as God started showing me how flawed I was too (don’t get me wrong I didn’t think I was perfect, but I didn’t think I was as messed up as I was either). Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly a fun experience, but was definitely necessary. I learned a lot about self reflection, but I still find it hard not judging people around me.

This is something that I’ve been struggling with for some time, and honestly, I don’t think its going to stop anytime soon, but I will continue to work on it.

Who in your life do you unfairly judge and how are you going to combat this?

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:37

Blessings

So lately I’ve been going through some hard times, just different things in my life that aren’t going so well. Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself stressing about all the bad stuff in my life rather then focusing on all the good. I got challenged by one of my closest friends to start counting my blessings, to come up with a list of awesome things in my life that I’m thankful for. To be completely honest I’ve struggled coming up with a list, if it was the bad stuff I could knock out a long list no problem but I guess it’s only because I think about it so much.

God’s forgiveness and everlasting love

William Andrew Torr 

Donna-Kay Kilgour – My twin

Incredibly supportive church

My mother, who always does the best she can

My not so amazing past for making me who I am today

LOL – Our young adults group at church and everyone in it

Memories of awesome things that I have done

Jero and Daniella – My Vanuatu girls for being so encouraging

A roof over my head every night

Food in the fridge

Rad supervisors/managers at work

Christmas music – no matter what, it always cheers me up

Unexpected plane flights to Brisbane

Job interview with Apple

Health

My passions – TWLOHA, Apple, Church, Operation Beautiful, etc.

That I am able to help my friends because of what I’ve been through

My animals for keeping me company when I am home alone

Chocolate – it makes everything better

Worship music – it also makes everything better :)

Freedom from persecution

Bright colours – without these my world would be a boring place

Rad photos that make me smile

Hope for the future

So here is my list in progress and my challenge to you. Try to look at the positives, make a list of blessings. It will change your outlook. Trust me.

All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God - Deuteronomy 28:2

To be continued..