When it Doesn't Feel Like Christmas Eve

Before I launch into today's thoughts, I want to wish my niece a very happy birthday!!

 

 This was clearly a couple of years ago...but it was our first picture together! Happy birthday, Cassie!! We love you and hope this day is magnificent!

I've been reading a lot of posts lately - both on blogs and on other forms of social media - that indicate the Christmas spirit seems to be at an all time low this year. {Kind of feels like the movie Elf became real!} I don't know if it's because it's been so unseasonably warm and we're fighting things like floods and tornadoes instead of snow and ice, or if it's because there's just so much hurt and we're afraid to let ourselves celebrate for fear we'll offend a hurting soul...or what. But this year it feels like we're all just going through the motions and struggling to find that heart-miracle.

It's been a rough December in Shafferland, in a first-world-problems kind of way. Ryan and I ripped apart our house right at the same time we decorated for Christmas, so the whole house has been upended all month, between our projects and our decorations. I took the month off from "work" - mostly because the office is buried in the mess that is our projected-land. It's been nice to hang out in the living room and enjoy the lights on the tree and the warmth of the fireplace, but it's been odd to be off the schedule I'd set for myself.

In addition, we started a clean-eating plan this month, so all the treats were missing from our house, and in fact, I didn't even leave the house for three weeks because I couldn't trust myself at any restaurant or coffee shop. Being cooped up and alone made me stir-crazy and quite grumpy.

I'd been looking forward to this week and its many celebrations {and a few treats!!} but it seems like this week brought its own new set of problems.

Hard conversations with friends - the conflict-laden kind that no one ever wants to have but they must exist for issues to be cleared up. Disappointments from people you didn't expect to bring that level of disappointment. Feeling lost in crowds of people you know and love. That was the start of the week.

And then came yesterday. I'd planned to work online at home and then finish some last minute shopping in the afternoon, but the aforementioned tornado warnings forced me to flip my plans. So I got up, ran around town, did my errands, and came home to work. I opened my laptop to a blank screen. The power would come on but nothing would register on the screen.

When the things you do as your work involve blogs and pictures and podcasts and all that - having your laptop mysteriously crash sends you straight into tears. I didn't panic. I was certain it wasn't dead to the core and things could be recovered from its memory even if the machine itself was beyond repair, but having this happen two days before Christmas was just not good. I called a computer shop and was told it couldn't be seen until tomorrow or even Monday, and from there, tears ensued. I cried the entire afternoon, pausing only to sleep so I didn't have to think about the computer for a while. Ryan comforted me as best he could, via text, assuring me it would be okay. I knew it would be okay, but it wouldn't be okay then.

I pulled myself off the couch and forced myself to do something productive, which was when I discovered I'd washed an entire load of clothes with an ink pen. Black ink smeared through the washer, all over my hands, and on our clothes.

I went to the kitchen for a snack and found a spider on the stove.

I went to the couch to sit down and stubbed my toe to a star-seeing degree.

Can I get a do-over?

Pulling out my journal, I told God I knew these problems are minuscule in comparison to what so many face. I know they're first world problems. But for this day, they were also my problems, and they hurt.

So I opened Ryan's computer to do what I could from there, including writing this little thoughtlet to you. I hope if your December has been hard, that God brings you some hope and joy for your heart. If your December has lacked its traditional spirit, I hope God brings a measure of wonder to you.

And I hope the same for our little house.

{And as an update, after Ryan came home and had dinner, he worked on the computer and managed to get it started again. We'll still have to have it looked at, but he got it going enough for me to work on it. HERO!!!!!!}