Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Colossians 3:2
For the first time since I can recall, my December calendar is mostly blank. Knowing there’d be an enormous demand for on-line shopping and delivery, I bought all my Christmas gifts before Thanksgiving. Having all my kids home, with limited extra-curriculars, we got the Christmas decorations out and up by the first of December. It’s like everything I’ve ever wished for for Advent: all the mundane tasks completed, with time to focus on what really matters.
How ironic that the season is still filled with such stress and tension.
It seems the enemy always finds a way to build a barricade between us and peace. Despite the pandemic giving most of us the gift of time to slow and savor the coming of Christ, the flipside has him feeding the flames of fear with the second spike in virus numbers. Throw in the ever-widening political divide in our country, and the fear gets hyped and inflated, growing so large it blocks the light of grace surrounding Advent.
Our only weapon is our choice of where to place our attention. We feed what we focus on. Just like we were prone to feed the busyness of the season in previous years, giving ourselves permission to feel stressed and overwhelmed, we’re prone now to lift up this fear and feel the same.
If we want to experience the holiness of the season, we have to choose to make The Divine our focus. The more we turn to an Advent devotional instead of the news or social media, the more we’ll find ourselves centered in the sacred. When we feast on the blessings in our lives, we feel the joy within grow stronger and larger than any darkness trying to overshadow it.
God gave us free will, and no pandemic or crisis in our country can take that away. It’s time to exercise that free will and use it to choose the Divine. It is the call of Advent. It is the constant desire of God.
Questions for Reflection:
*In the midst of rising COVID cases and political strife, am I choosing to focus on the fear, or on the Divine?
If we want to experience the holiness of the season, we have to choose to make The Divine our focus.
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Shifting My Perspective 
I needed that view of this trying time, Claire!! Thank you for helping me to focus on Christ’s coming instead of the crisis we worry is coming! xoxoxo
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Oooh that is such a great line, Mom! “Focus on Christ’s coming instead of the crisis we worry is coming!” Brilliantly and beautifully said. Thank you!
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Well said and very true! Christmas blessings to all🙏🏼🎄❤️💚
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Thanks, Christine! Wishing you and yours a blessed Advent and a miraculous Christmas!!
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Wow!!” It seems the enemy always finds a way to build a barricade between us and peace. “ How you’ve hit the nail on the head! For sure, Claire, I believe we’re all living this reality. But if we’re willing to dwell on, actually steep ourselves in GRATITUDE to our Loving God for all His Gifts to us, especially at this time as we celebrate His awesome Love in sending His Son to rescue us and bring us back into His original plan of complete and eternal happiness, then that GRATITUDE will fill us with an inner, lasting peace and deep joy that is not the result of external situations. Believe me, Claire, I can’t claim to live fully in that constant state of GRATITUDE, but I am making a daily effort to remain in that state that truly results in PEACE!
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Jackie, I love that each time you wrote GRATITUDE, you did so in capital letters. Just that visual alone conveys that when we put enough focus on GRATITUDE, causing it to grow LARGER, PEACE does come. Here’s wishing you GRATITUDE and PEACE for a HOLY and WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS!!!
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