Breathe

It starts about a week before Thanksgiving.  The rushing. The hurry hurry hurry and the feelings of being overwhelmed and you aren't getting things done.

The stores have been full of Christmas for over a month, to the point where we have subconsciously reached the point of ignoring it. Black Friday has morphed into 2 months of retailers trying to get us to spend spend spend.

The incessant clamoring from Charities you gave to once, many years ago, along with ones you have never heard of, all wanting donations. Promising that ”Someone” will match your contribution, if you send them money right now.

The worries of have you gotten all the shopping done for people who aren’t local, where you will need to wrap and mail gifts early in the month. Have you gotten the annual Christmas letter done, after all it’s the one time a year you actually correspond with 90% of the people you mail the letters to, so you need to get them written and mailed.  Oh dear, you’ve done the shopping, but now the lists have changed. 

We rush, and hurry and feel overwhelmed. Then, oh dear oh dear, the snowstorm hits and things get rescheduled and the one day that was supposed to be set aside to go shopping for the final gifts, is now crowded with other things on the list your spouse just gave you, with a “Now don’t forget we need to ....”

And through it all, we forget to take time for ourselves. Time to just breathe and to be thankful for being in a world of plenty where we can be overwhelmed by social functions and shopping, rather than in a world where we are overwhelmed by our children going to bed hungry at night, or struggling through the snow in a thin jacket and water soaked tennis shoes.  We forget to take time to BREATHE, and be still. To hear the birds caroling in the trees rather than the radio station that started playing carols before Thanksgiving; to enjoy the smell of a wood fire burning in the hearth.  Time to play a board game with our family while we talk and laugh together. Or to Pop popcorn and string it on a thread for the birds.

Most of all we forget to take time in our hurry and business to stop and Thank God, for the many things he has given us, starting with his son.  Even in church, to often, we are busy planning the rest of our day and mentally going through the to-do lists in our heads, instead of quietly absorbing God’s word and the joy he is giving us.

Breathe. In. Out. Breathe.
Praise God.
Thank Him for the many gifts He’s given you.
Let the peace envelop you.  Let your hurry and rushing and being overwhelmed get absorbed by the peace.
Breathe.

Dale Weir

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash