Carolyn Collins Writes
Honor Christ In Celebrations
You may not be old enough to remember when the country was considering a forty hour work week. I remember hearing, “What will people do with all that leisure time?” I heard the same sentiment when the time saving gadgets and technology filled the market place. Even so, we are rushed, stressed, and busy and begin to have a heightened sense of awareness about this time of year.
Extra cooking, entertaining, decorating, and shopping for Thanksgiving and Christmas are added to an already overloaded schedule. We usually fall into bed exhausted with a sense of anxiety over things left undone.
Maybe, our focus should honor the Lord. Take a weekly day of rest as God did after creating the Earth and all within it, and as He instructed us. As your body rests and your mind explores, recognize and remember what is important to you and your family.
After the day of rest and fun, strategize with spouse and children. Make a list of what is important to you and your family about Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Put it in descending order of importance with help of family members identifying activities most important to them. After considering together, some things may need to be adjusted. Just make sure everyone’s voice is heard and considered.
From menus, food preparation and cleanup, shopping, decorations, and buying and wrapping gifts, plan and delegate. Decide ahead of time how much you can spend. Perhaps that consideration should top the list. Debt, whether credit card or otherwise, heightens stress and anxiety.
Enjoy your family; have fun together. Laugh together, laugh often, and give thanks for all the blessings and especially in the midst of circumstances we cannot control. In and through our praises to the Lord, our mountains are reduced to molehills.
Give to those in need. Last Christmas, my family members, each, received one gift in their name to someone in need through Samaritan’s Purse. M-m-m. I wonder how the chicks have fared? Do they lay eggs to feed a family? Perhaps, they have multiplied from a dozen to two dozen? And the goats? Is the bicycle still taking the gospel bearer into the mountains? I may never know, but they are gifts that honor Jesus.
Let’s change the most asked question from “What did you get for Christmas?” to, “What did you give for Christmas?”
- Carolyn
Life Champions
The clock showed 2:38 seconds left in the basketball game. My high school team was playing the meanest, baddest, winningest girls’ team in the region. We were losing. The coach motioned for me to enter the game. My heart thudded as hard as the ball bouncing against the gym floor. I had never as much as practiced with the team. I had not expected to play, although I had dressed out. My only claim to fame lay in my ability to ring the basket without an intimidator in my face.
Some days earlier, I had been asked by my P.E. teacher, the basketball coach, to join the team. Thrilled, I had asked my Mom about playing. She had played on her school team and understood my excitement, but she said I would not be able to remain after school and practice because I had no way home. She added that they might be able to take me to some games.
In the early fifties, parents did not have psychologists such as Dobson who teaches that people react positively to others based on looks, brains, and/or athletics. He said his dad spent hours teaching him to not only play tennis, but become a champion at it. He and others have said that it is crucial that children become proficient at some skill to help in building confidence.
Most children are born with at least one or, maybe, all positive traits. Who, but parents, have the happy task of seeing that beauty become more than skin deep; and that intelligence is heightened; and that sports and/or musical abilities are developed, trained, and maximized?
Parents and children who live in the shadow of Bloomingdale Alliance Church have allies. Our pastors and teachers seek to instill that inward beauty the Living Word gives. The Upward basketball program is instrumental in developing invaluable personal, social, and team skills.
These allies do not relieve the parents’ responsibility but work with the parents to train up a child. With enough interest, a writing workshop could be developed to help in developing the educational skills and joy of reading and writing.
Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right. Proverbs 20. Train up a child in the way he should go and , when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverb 22:6. (KJV)
Who knows? Had I a Bloomingdale Alliance Church in my youth, my basketball debut might not have been my swan song.May we help our youth become champions at realizing their value in life and in God’s Kingdom. - Carolyn Collins