Fast-forward 3 weeks from now…
It’s Christmas eve, 11am rolls around and you begin to regain consciousness to the new day. All comfy and warm in your own home bed, it slowly dawns on you… Christmas is tomorrow! All the Christmas build up is nearly over. All those beginning weeks of holidays, all the friends you wanted to see, presents you were going to buy and wrap, all the work you were gonna have done by now flash through your mind. Damn, where’s the time gone.
It’s Christmas tomorrow, and you’re still tired. You’re tired and you need looking after. And yet you’re also independent and perfectly capable, and you need your own space.
If only your family had understood that, this whole thing might’ve been a lot easier…
You came home to recover from the last term and recharge ready for the next. It’s like they don’t understand that you’re tired. As if they expect everything to be exactly the same; they don’t understand all that you’ve lived the last term, all the things and people you’ve managed to pack into that short time, all the ways you’ve grown up and changed, they don’t get how hard it is, or how little you’ve slept, they haven’t felt that odd feeling you’ve had hovering over you for a term, where nothing is in your comfort zone, but you have to just keep going or you’ll never have friends.
If only they understood. Then maybe you wouldn’t be so tired, you might feel more rested and less hassled by now.
If only they understood. Then maybe we wouldn’t argue so much and it’d be far easier just to get along with them and fit into family life again.
You’re not fighting them, you’re fighting to relax, fighting for them to understand.
But what if, instead of fighting your family at all this Christmas, you could fight FOR them?
What if - instead of being frustrated with the ways your family do things and the ways they’re different to you - you could go home excited to see how you could bring out the best in them??
What if – instead of worrying about how tired you are and hoping your family will help you rest – you could entrust that to God and look to bring your best to your family?
What if – instead of noticing all the things they don’t quite understand about you and keeping yourself aloof from them – you could seek to go deeper with them, pray with them and share faith with them?
What if – instead of taking this holiday as a time to switch off and concentrate on you – you could go home with an open heart, asking God what He is doing in your family and how you can show them more of Jesus?
What if, instead of fighting our families this Christmas, we could fight FOR them?!
'Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near...' [Hebrews 10]
Fast forward 3 weeks from now… what story will you write with your family as you go home this Christmas?
