Christmas 2009

My friend asked me today if my Christmas letter was forthcoming…  I sighed that it was but I had a problem.  I am feeling too happy to write my Christmas letter.  If you haven’t read my other letters this might not make sense to you.  Most of my letters have been some kind of attempt to make the best of Christmas.  This year I am feeling happy.  I am not happy about Christmas specifically but I am not bothered by it either.

But really part of the purpose of the Christmas letter is to review my year.  I generally start by reading last year’s letter.  I did that and I was surprised by the letter.  I remember having a really difficult time coping with anything last year.  Yet somehow my letter was seemingly upbeat.  I didn’t mention my struggle at all.

I feel like this year I have come out of the darkness.  I don’t know how to explain everything that happened except to give you a list of things I have noticed that are different for me now:

• A couple of weeks ago I mentioned to my friend that I was running.  She assumed I meant figuratively.  I said ‘no I am actually running on a treadmill…’  Last year I probably would have said I was hiding – literally and figuratively.
• Without realizing it, I had taken on an identity of a person who gives up.  I have been freed from that.  This year I wrote a novel in thirty days.  I also earned a camera for myself by continuing to work out.  I didn’t stop working out when I had set backs.
• I find that the more discipline I practice the more free I feel.
• Now that I have goals, I am kinder to myself about the things that don’t matter.
• I danced…
• I can feel myself beginning to shine.
• I am learning to reach out and be honest.  I have come to rely on many friends for help.
• I have access to a strength the comes from God.  I have felt the power of living as a child of God.
• When my doctor told me I couldn’t work out for two weeks, I came home and cried.

So what does this have to do with Christmas?  Well Christmas is the time we mark the arrival of Jesus, our Emmanuel, God with us.  I believe that the changes I have experienced are because there is a God who lives in us, who is not distant from our daily lives and struggles.  I am so grateful to Jesus for showing me the way this year. 

Not everything is perfect.  There are still many things I would like to see change in my life.  But I am blessed.  I pray that this is a year of happy beginnings for all of us.

Love,

Misty