Merry Christmas! 
It’s that time of year again when joyful voices fill the air with shouts of “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year”. Stores have been busy with last minute shoppers and mothers are busy making Christmas cookies while the kids frost the cookies and sneak dough when no ones looking. Snow periodically falls from the sky flooding the ground and sprinkling the trees in delicate layers of spotless flakes. Carols are sung, families are brought together and the happiness that comes from this season is spread around to those near and dear to us.
This holiday season has become a really amazing experience for me. I have struggled with the way I view Christmas these past few weeks. It’s easy to get lost in the hubbub of Christmas with the toys and all, but I also feel it’s easy to get over critical about the real meaning of Christmas and how we need to celebrate it. Christmas is an amazing time for fellowship and love amongst family and friends. Expressions of love and joy are exchanged with gifts, hugs, words of encouragement and warm conversations. The anticipation and excitement that comes around this season is always fun to be a part of and I try to cherish every moment it. I think giving is an important thing to do, not just at Christmas time, but all year round. However there is a special aroma of love and joy that comes only this time of year that is uniquely experienced through the different traditions we share in our families and the time spent with loved ones.
“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.” Paranoid
John 3:16
What an amazing thing! I have heard this verse so many times and have it memorized by heart from years of repeating it. No matter how many times I hear it though it still strikes me speechless how God could love us that much! This is the season in which we have set aside to remember that He came to this earth as a baby to change this world for the better. In this season many homes are filled with happiness, but many homes are also left starving for that. Christmas isn’t just about having a beautiful Christmas tree, having gifts to put under it or having fresh cookies to eat though. Christmas can be celebrated without those things. Christmas is a time set aside to be thankful for the many blessings that God has given us through His Son’s birth on this earth. It’s a time to express our love to each other and our love for Jesus through giving. It’s also a time to praise God for sending His Son to earth to save us!
This past Sunday, Community Bible Church (the church my family attends) gave away 32,000 lbs of food to those in need in the Winona community. For eight hours on Sunday afternoon we stacked food, hauled boxes and greeted people with smiles and a willingness to help. The faces that were transformed into smiles and the uneasiness that turned into laughter was a remarkable work of God through the giving we did. People walked out the doors carrying boxes of dyed and flavored rock candy, “Bed Head” conditioner, mustard greens, instant soups and many more random items. The people that were affected by this love may not know exactly why we did it and we may not see some of them again, but the important truth, or reality, that I saw at work in this experience was what compassion can do. A little compassion goes a long way and I think that if we all showed compassion in our own lives many other lives could be changed. Compassions takes the form of many actions and it’s something that we should all be well practiced at. Not only does it change the lives of those we express it to, it changes our own lives!
Christmas is an amazing time of the year to show compassion. It was because of compassion that Jesus was sent to this earth to die for us. So as we celebrate the birth of our Savior let us remember the real reason we are to be joyful and the real reason for this season! May God Bless your Christmas Holiday and may you all be filled with the Joy that comes from this season!
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
- Romans 15:13