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Christmas Alert!
It seems like it was just yesterday that we were getting into the Christmas Spirit of 2008. Now we are rushing again toward the next one – 2009. In fact as you can see – only One Month until we celebrate that one day of the year again.
I was thinking of the magic of the season in our family and how it has changed over the years for me.
From the days of being the boy that was excited about it all… not being able to wait for the Christmas Morning gift opening times… to the Grandpa now watching my Grandsons almost vibrate with anticipation of what they will get One month from now. What a difference a few years make.
What is the one thing that you are reminded of this year – as you approach this Holiday Season? What is a memory that you will keep? Who will you share this memory with?
My thoughts are often of family and the ‘big people’ that were there in my life as a boy. Then they shift to the times when I became a ‘big people’ to the kids. The days when our own family started to grow and the kids caught the excitement. Now we are at the next stage with our kids and grandkids carrying the excitement.
For the most part these men have known what I have known as a boy. They have the warm and fuzzy feelings too – from the past.
The problem is that the events in their lives kind of destroyed the warm and fuzzy stuff from the past… and the relationship with their family. Christmas often stopped dead when the crime, charges and conviction came down. From that moment on there was little good about Christmas for these guys. In fact if the story could be told – a prison cell inside on Christmas Morning is just about the worst place on earth…lonely… memory flooded… and with tons of regret wrapping the mind of the many in the cells.
It is also the most lonely place when he comes out of prison. The fact that everyone else is celebrating and he has no one… is worse again. Inside of prison he became used to the 27 or so years of the ‘Inside Christmas Season” everyone he knew was in the same boat… now outside he doesn’t even have the guys that he knew ‘Inside’.
My Christmas wish this year is that each guy living in the community after serving his time in Prison – would have one family invite him to share with them.
“How in the world could you do that? I don’t know any body from Prison?” someone asks.
My response is, “They are closer to you than you think.”
Call a community Chaplain and ask how you might help out. He will know someone that has no one. There is one of these guys in every community across Canada… and they would love to have that kind of support.
A few years ago when things were somewhat simpler I spent my Christmas day playing board games with some of these fellows in a local provincial jail. It was the best afternoon that I had in my entire life and ministry. I became one of them… and they were welcome into my life.
Stopping to think about it… that was what Christmas was all about originally… God allowed his Son to be born as a human… to become one of us… and share our world with him… in fact to enter our world completely.
What if we were able to do the same with those in need around us? What if… I was really a Christ Follower in all that I did? What if I got involved – completely and really cared enough to give myself away this Christmas time? What if?
This is my Christmas alert. I am alerting myself to the need that is real and that is in front of me. I think that we will have company this year again… someone that is alone and lonely… some one that that is regretting the time that they are facing. Hmmm?
~ Murray Lincoln ~
www.murraylincoln.com/
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