The most shocking thing to happen to me in the past couple months was to have my mom call and confirm my suspicion: we are NOT going to be in Pensacola for Christmas this year. This will be the first Christmas of my life outside of Florida. Instead we will be at our new home in Lebanon, TN. When I consider my upcoming vacation, I get a little anxious, because I have no idea what is going to happen. I mean, of course Santa will find us no matter where we are (we were always assured of this when we left our house for Florida), but will we read the same book and still have a talent show on Christmas Eve? Will we have watergate salad for Christmas dinner? We won't have all the extended family around, and we'll actually be sleeping in our own beds! (Well, I'll share Taylor's like I always do). This is quite the improvement from the pull out couch that all the girls sleep on Christmas Eve that slopes down so your head is lower than your feet no matter how many pillows you sleep on. :-) But, what will we do with ourselves all day since we won't be roaming the neighborhood seeing everyone's new presents and gathering for family meals? It will sure be different. But, I'm very excited to have a more quiet Christmas for once. I think it will be well worth the sacrifice.
Seeing how hard it is for me to break tradition about something as simple as celebrating Christmas, I can start to understand a little bit more fully what it must have been like for the Jews in Christ's day. He asked them to change their whole lifestyle! This was not just how they celebrated Passover, but how they lived and interacted everyday. He asked them to change their view of salvation! It is little wonder that Christ exclaimed so many times of their resistance to break from traditions of their fathers, the elders, and men. It may be a little bit of a stretch, but we are all resistant to change. I don't like it much myself. If you were a Jew in the time of Christ, would you be willing to change everything because of His word? It would be very difficult. I think we should all be a little more wary of judging the ancient Jews as well as people around us. Change is HARD. Especially when you've been doing something one way for a long, long time.
6 comments:
If you do not kn ow what to do, I will always be around, love.
Traditions are great, but change can be good, too. When we lived in NC, we always traveled to TN for Christmas. Then we moved back here and it was really weird for a year or two. Some things we had done since the kids were little had to go. But we found other traditions to begin. Then inlaws and grandchildren were added and that makes for additional change. It just keeps life interesting.
Maybe I'll get to spend a little more time with you for Christmas than I did for Thanksgiving! :)
Yes, now that I'm a mom I'm getting good at quilt trips. Thanks for answering (but sorry for making you feel like you had to)!
Your new background is beautiful. I've seen so many pretty ones, it makes me want to change mine every day!
Sometimes I wonder if being human is to be at least slightly resistant to change. I mean when is the last time you woke up in the morning saying 'gee I hope that my reality changed overnight.'
Humans like their own way of thinking about things... take the apostles in Christ's time. They expected a messiah that would overthrow the armies of the Romans and save the Jews, no wonder they did not understand what was going on when Christ was crucified. They weren't expecting to change their view of reality.
Admittedly moving from Florida to Texas is a far cry from having to have your religious beliefs realigned with reality, but it is interesting to note that everyone had problems changing.
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