Finding Joy at Christmas-Time

Parties to attend (or throw).

Gifts to purchase and wrap.

Cards to write.

Cookies to bake.

Packages to ship.

Family dinners to cook.

Wow. I don’t know where to begin. Hmm. I do know that most won’t get done, in this house anyway. Can’t afford to be frivolous. Finances are tight. Finances get tighter for more and more families every year.

What’s worse, parents buy into the societal messages that more is better and that our kids should be spoiled half to death, else we are not good parents. This is not the message we, as adults, should be receiving from other adults or from society. This is also not the message we want our kids to walk away with. If our kids buy into the idea that more presents equals being loved more, then when s/he receives only one small gift under the tree, s/he believes s/he’s not loved.

We as parents propagate this falsehood as well, by feeling that we cannot properly express our love with that measly offering under the tree. We mope and make excuses and we make promises for next year. Please don’t make promises you cannot keep. Kids remember the broken promises, and broken promises work at damaging the soul and tearing away at trust.

Moping and making excuses isn’t the way to convey a positive message. Even if there is only the love in our hearts as our offering under the tree, we must show that our love, and the love of our Lord and Savior, is sufficient for joy to thrive during the holidays and all year long.

Christ is the reason for the season. Christmas is about celebrating Our Lord’s birth. Yes, it is true that the wise men brought wonderful, expensive gifts, but the shepherds brought only their adoration because they had nothing else to offer. Mary and Joseph welcomed all who came to witness the birth of Our Savior. Even though some brought magnificent gifts, no gift was required to behold our newborn Lord.

On that note, I would like to offer a different way to look at things this Christmas season. Yes, gifts are great, and yes, I believe every child should have something to look forward to on Christmas morning; however, we need not succumb to the many societal and media influences, nor the peer-pressure-induced stress, depression, and anxiety.

Commit the following verse to heart, because I’d like to offer several reasons why this single verse could add joy to your celebrations this year. First, it teaches us what true treasure is all about, (and it isn’t anything you can carry in your pocket). And second, it teaches us what God cares about and ultimately, how He loves us.

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19

 What did Mary “treasure up” in her heart? She treasured the glorifying words of the shepherds, about her newborn son, Jesus. She treasured up the wonder of the Magi who followed a star all the way to Bethlehem just to see her newborn son, The Christ Jesus (see Matthew 2:1-2). She treasured the (most likely) exemplary behavior of her young son, Jesus (see Luke 2:51), even if she didn’t always understand. She treasured up the amazement of others, when they first heard her Jesus speak.

I imagine that she also treasured up all the normal things we moms (and dads) treasure up in our own hearts about our own children. And she pondered what it all would mean for her son, just as we ponder the futures of our own children.

I’ve just compared Mary’s parental love to our own. Now, I would like to take it a step farther and compare Mary’s love for her son, Jesus, with God the Father’s love for us.

God loves us unconditionally. He revels in our successes, and His heart breaks for us when we don’t succeed. He is one of those fathers who loves us to such a degree that He trusts us to make our own mistakes. He also loves us to such a degree that He patiently waits for us to come running home for help, after we make a mess of things on our own. He will never say, “I told you so.” He holds no contempt for our sinful nature. He will not shame us or refuse us when we finally come to Him.

God knows the circumstances of our lives, even before we try to explain things to Him or make excuses for our behavior. He knows our hearts better than we do, and God knows that there is no shame in poverty. Society tries to shame the poor and less fortunate, but God never shames us for our misfortune or our mistakes.

When we can barely make it from one week to the next, many of us fear going to church because we fear the time when the offering bag comes around. It is embarrassing to have nothing to offer, especially when churches are making extra pleas at this time of year, to support their many worldly missions. Sometimes we can even be made to feel left out, when our own church doesn’t recognize our need, yet they cry for the needs of people halfway around the world, whom they’ve never even met.

Don’t feel bad if you have had this thought. I know I have, in years past. How could I worry about them, when I didn’t even know whether we would have enough on our own table for Christmas dinner? It made me feel like I was a horrible person, not caring about the children in Africa (or wherever else). Fact was, I did care for the welfare of these children and their families. It just tore me apart too much, to not be able to do anything to help them. It was yet another obligation on my heart that I could not meet.

God understands why we feel this way. He knows that it is difficult to have compassion for the needs of others when our own needs are not being met. For me personally, and most likely for you, God knows that if I had it to give, I would gladly give it, and then some.

When it comes to our tithes and offerings, God knows our hearts. He knows when a dollar has been stretched as far as it possibly can be stretched. He knows that pang in our hearts when we can barely feed our own family. He knows our heartache when we cannot set aside what we want to, for charity, for tithing, for good and honorable reasons, for our children. God knows our list of priorities and obligations. He knows that sometimes, we simply don’t have it to give.

And that’s okay with God. He knows that we will all go through hard times and trials. It is inevitable. All He asks, is that we ask for his help to get us through our hard times.

So don’t fear going to church. There is no shame in being unable to tithe right now. Someday you will be able to. Your need to be there should far outweigh the lack in your offering. If your church puts more emphasis on that magical ten percent, then they aren’t worth their weight, in my opinion. Tithing is not about reaching that predetermined ten percent. It is about the condition of our hearts. And church is about helping each other, being a community, even closer, a family.

God knows that sometimes we need help, and He also knows our prideful side. Set aside the pride and turn it all over to His able hands. He’s been waiting for us to ask for help. For He is a gentle and patient Father.

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” Psalm 103:8

I challenge you to find ways to teach your children about storing up treasures in the heart. It’s never too early nor too late to teach about the pitfalls of materialism.

• Make gifts from recyclables with your children, to give to teachers, friends, family. Teach the good old message that it is not the gift but the thought that counts.
• Take an early evening walk with your children, around the neighborhood, to check out everyone else’s lights and yard decorations. Use this time to teach about appreciating the fleeting nature of beauty and the splendor all around us.
• Take your children to volunteer their time. This can be as simple as going to a senior care center and singing carols; or offering to make ornaments with the seniors; or it can be as complicated as putting together all your kids’ friends and their parents, to sing carols around the neighborhood.
• Decorating doesn’t have to be expensive, either. Those shiny advertisers that come as junk mail make quite sparkly paper chains. Kids love to color and paint, so let them make all sorts of decorations and cards to hand out.
• Nifty homemade window clings can be made with clear contact paper and Sharpies.
• Let your imagination soar.

My prayer for you today is that finding your family’s joy isn’t an expensive prospect. I pray you can return to simpler ways, and create for yourself a simpler, easier, more joy-filled life.

In His grace,

Jennifer Joy

Christmas Worries

This can be an especially tough time of year for many folks who already find themselves trapped in the cycle of poverty. When we can barely meet our bills and other obligations on a regular basis, how can we possibly squeak out even the tiniest of budgets to make our holidays bright, like everyone else pretends to?

As parents caught in this situation, it breaks our hearts when our little angels ask for this or that, and we cannot provide it. It tears us apart inside, when we have to choose between food and rent. We know our kids need both a roof over their heads and a satisfied belly. So we pay the rent and pray for a little something extra in this month’s food box, so that we might go on to live another day and another month. But another month turns into another year, when we are caught in the poverty cycle.

If we could get ahead just enough, then . . .

If we could just ____, then we could get ahead.

Why can’t they just leave us alone for one month? Then we could get back on track.

It is enough to drive a person mad. It is enough to drive a person back to their sinful nature. We try our best to go straight, go clean, stay on the wagon in whichever fashion, but the stress can get to be too much. I understand this. I have been there. I’ve done some really stupid things at really desperate times. I understand the feeling of being backed into a corner and feeling as though you have no choice.

Please hear me when I say that even though you may not see a good choice among all the bad, there is always a better choice. When we reach a point in our lives when we lose hope because of all the poor choices available to us, that is when we need to pray the strongest. That is the time when we need to let it all go. Yes, our bills will still be ours to pay, but when we let go, we turn the stress and worry about the bills (or whatever) to Jesus. When we let go, it frees our mind of the franticness of the situation. Letting go allows us the mental space to get back on track. It gives us the time and wits to sort out all the mess to find the best possible solution. We can say to the worry and stress, “Okay, so maybe all the bills didn’t get paid again this month (or whatever), but worry won’t sprout wings on its own, so I’m not going to obsess about it anymore.”

Worry won’t get the bills paid or the kids fed. Stress will cause more problems than it cures.

Invite God to come help you with your problems. He’s waiting for you to call on Him, through prayer.

My prayer for you today is that you are able to let go of your worries and your stress, so that you can breathe and see more clearly. Whether your stressors are financial, physical, or emotional, I pray that your heart will be receptive to letting go, so that God could come in and help you with your woes.

Love,

Jennifer Joy

DAY NINE: Loving a Sister Out of Despair

Today is day nine of the 16 Days Campaign to end domestic abuse and violence against women.

Today is also my father’s birthday, God rest his soul. Happy birthday, Daddy. I miss you.

 

We all have our own story to tell. We all experience events from our own unique perspective. Two people can live in the same family, have the same parents, and yet their stories can be drastically different. As an example, two sisters can attend the same school, have the same teachers, and yet because one struggles with dyslexia and the other does not, the first sister will not have pleasant memories of childhood, while the second sister will look back on those years as the best of her life.

Everyone’s perspective of a situation is different, depending on her unique background, circumstances, and even just what mood she woke up in that morning. I myself have been chastised by relatives because they held to the belief that my childhood was near perfect, and yet I suffered horribly at the words spoken directly to me by my parents, those words not overheard by the other children in the family, or even by the other adults who should have been there for me. As I stated, each person experiences life events in their own unique way. It does not make either perspective wrong, nor does it make it any easier on the abused one to deny that her story is accurate in her own heart. She knows what she has went through, and outsiders do not. God knows what she has gone through, and humans do not know the extent of her pain just by looking in from the outside, and especially not by denying her pain and suffering.

Discrimination and judgmental attitudes happen in the best of families and abuse happens in the best of family situations.

If you have a sister, a friend, a child, any loved one, crying out to you for help, please do not judge her tears and pain. Believe her. Help her end the abuse cycle in her life.

If you see a sister or friend or loved one sinking into a hole of despair, reach out to her. Maybe too many have judged her pain in the past. Maybe she no longer knows how to reach out to you. Maybe she fears you will slap her hand and her heart for the effort.

Quite possibly, she has been abused and with abuse comes a loss of trust. Even though you may judge yourself to be loving and compassionate, she does not realize that fact. Open yourself to her and show her what she has lost through abuse. Show her that you are loving and compassionate by reaching out to her, by showing her that you are trustworthy. This will go a lot farther for a hurting soul that simply saying, “Well, she never told me,” or, “Why can’t she ask me instead of me having to go the extra mile?”

Ask yourself this, is she worth the extra mile? If you have love and compassion in your heart for her, then I believe she is worth the extra mile. If you can at least manage agape love, then it is worth your effort. She is worth every effort to save.

She cannot ask because she has been hurt too many times and she no longer recognizes a safe person from an unsafe person. She has lost trust and she has lost the hope that anyone could ever help her or love her enough to rescue her.

To change a sister from an abuse victim to an abuse survivor, we must reach out with loving kindness, reaching into her broken places and soothing them with love and compassion and not judgment. It most definitely does take action on our part.

I’ve been there. I know how alone and helpless we sisters can feel when in abusive relationships.

I know how difficult it can be to reach out for help.

To summarize, here is a list of how you can help:

• Don’t be afraid to speak up and let her know you are concerned for her safety.
• Be supportive
• Acknowledge that this is a difficult time in her life
• Do not judge her and above all, respect any decision she makes without making her feel bad about her choices
• Help her develop a safety plan if she does not believe she can leave right now
• Allow her the space and time to make the right decisions, and always make sure she knows you are there for her when she is ready to make that decision
• Encourage outside interests, invite her and her children along in your plans whenever possible
• Encourage her to reach out for professional help or a support group

Also remember that you cannot rescue her. The decision has to be her own; otherwise she will not be able to escape the cycle of abuse.

My prayer for you today is that you reach out to help a sister, a friend, a loved one. When your heartstrings are pulled by a situation, there is a reason.

In His grace,

Jennifer Joy

DAY EIGHT: The Cycle of Abuse

Today is day eight of the 16 days Campaign. We are halfway there. We will end the cycle of abuse, one precious life at a time.

Today’s topic is the cycle of abuse. As I see it, there are several cycles involved in abuse. One being a familial cycle, in that if children witness abuse, they are more likely to end up in abusive relationships themselves (Women mostly as victims and men mostly as perpetrators. Sorry, but it is not sexist or judgmental if it is a statistical fact). Another cycle is hopping from one abusive relationship to another, and this can be very devastating for the victim and any children involved, if she does not learn how to avoid such relationships in the future. More on this topic later.

Another cycle of abuse is the cycle that can happen almost on a daily basis in some relationships. That cycle of abuse goes something like this:

The perpetrator in the relationship will inflict abuse—whether it is mental, emotional, physical, or sexual, it does not matter—the cycle still works the same. During the abuse phase, the perpetrator will oftentimes get angry (but not always, for my abuser was very methodical and controlled in his abuse). There will be a breakdown in communication, and arguments will ensue, even though the victim knows that this will lead to more abuse. She will try to keep the abuser calm, placating him with offers of sex or whatever has worked in the past. The victim and any children involved feel they are always walking on eggshells.

After the abuse phase comes the make-up phase. Whether the abuser accepts responsibility for his actions or not, he will apologize and promise it will never happen again. He does this to calm the victim and keep her tied to him. She tries to believe him, and thus thinks that she should not leave because he “promised” to do better next time, even though he has broken that same promise many times in the past. He may even blame her for his actions or deny anything abusive even happened. These tactics work to confuse her and brainwash her into believing it is her fault or that she is over-exaggerating.

Then there will be a phase of relative calm, and the perpetrator will act as if nothing ever happened. He may continue the make-up phase by plying her with gifts or flowers or being extra nice. This makes his victim believe that the abuse is finally over. She begins to hope again, but in essence, he is setting her up for an even bigger fall next time.

This cycle repeats over and over. Sometimes the cycle can repeat several times in a single day, and other times, it could take months for a single cycle. Oftentimes, as the abuse escalates, the make-up phase and the calm will totally disappear, leaving only the abuse.

Excuses are often made for the abuse and the abuser. They say it is caused by substance abuse or because he is under a lot of stress. Or they may even go so far as to say that the abuser doesn’t know any better or that the victim deserved it.

These are all false. I am especially emphatic that no one deserves to be abused.

Substance abuse and stress do not cause domestic violence. They may increase the intensity, but they are not the cause. An abuser has learned to use these tactics to get his way, to stay in control. He makes the choice to abuse. He is not an innocent victim of his lifestyle.

Furthermore, just because an abuser comes from an abusive past or he witnessed it in his family growing up does not give him the right to claim that he “doesn’t know any better.” Everyone can learn to do better. Everyone can grow beyond their past mistakes and/or family history.

It is all a choice. He can continue to choose to abuse, or he can hold himself to a higher standard and work to improve not only himself but his relationships.

People may also say, “If it were really that bad, she would leave.”

I can say from personal experience that leaving isn’t always easy. I believed I had nowhere else to go, partly because he told me no one would ever want me and partly from my family history. I believed no one would help me get free. I had lost all hope. Plus I had a twisted sense of respect and honor (started in my childhood and spurred on by my abuser), and believed I had to hold my tiny family together and take the abuse for the sake of stability for my kids.

Sometimes, leaving can be dangerous. He may threaten to kill her or to take her children from her—he could also threaten to kill someone closed to her. The most dangerous time for many survivors is when she finally takes a stand and attempts to leave. Even so, it is possible to leave and it is possible to have an actual loving, caring relationship—free from abuse—in the future.

As bystanders, family members, and friends, we must do all we can to believe her. We must believe what she says is true, even if we do not understand why she won’t or can’t leave. She most likely does not feel safe enough to leave, or else she has lost all hope of a better future and needs a compassionate soul to unconditionally love her and to help her get free.

Once free, the best thing an abuse survivor can do for herself is to not jump right into another relationship; for this can lead into the lifestyle of being a victim. She needs to trust that she does not need a man in her life to take care of her. She needs to allow herself the time to heal and to learn how to find a better mate, next time around. If she does not give herself time to heal and grow personally, then she will inevitably end up right back into another abusive relationship (or back with the original abuser) and this next relationship is often worse than the first one, because she has already been beaten down, “primed” for the abuse to happen again.

These may sound like harsh words, but they are spoken in love from one abuse survivor to another. This cycle can be overcome.

My prayer for you today is one of compassion. I pray that if you are a victim, a compassionate angel will step up, take your hand, and lead to a better life. And I pray that if you are a family member or friend, you will be that compassionate angel for your hurting sister or friend.

In His Grace,

Jennifer Joy