The end of a very eventful year is upon us. Each day had a meaning at the time but then they slip away to minutes, hours, months and soon it is gone.

With a new year ahead that we can open in two days it brings about much reflecting. Ways we want to do it better and ways we don’t want to do it at all. Since it’s an open page at this point, we want to face it squarely and with much contemplation.

The people we care about, the ones we avoid, to the others who inspire us to greater things, we are in debt. Time in a glass, passing with indifference to our gaze and mocking any good intentions of years past.

I want to do better and I want to be better. The choices I make will pretty well decide the outcome of my inward resolutions. Each year should bring a good return for our time. With the recklessness of youth when weeks and months raced by with total abandonment we now see time is not on our side.

Wisdom often comes at great expense. Responsibility is not pocket change. The great lie is that wealth and treasures are the things that make us happy. They don’t. Wasted life and dreams are the harvest of such thinking.

Our families and friends are the wealth of our existence. On the death bed I’ve never heard anyone ask to see their new car again or to look at their jewelry once more. Rather, they want their loved ones near and are comforted by the loving goodbye’s spoken from the heart.

That is the wealth of the past, and the present……..and the future.

Essentially Esther

………..felt invisible? It’s something new that’s coming soon. On television they showed how heavy armored equipment could be hid right in plain sight in the desert. It was quite impressive although I don’t remember how they did it. And if it was shown on television, wouldn’t everyone see it and make ways to “see” it??

As a kid, my brother used to write letters with invisible ink. It was secret instructions and not to be read by anyone but another club member who could reveal the contents and answer back. All very hush, hush.

Then there was me in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. I went in for a routine lab work-up and after checking in with the girl at the desk, I turned to find a place to sit. Though the chairs were about half-filled no one looked at me or spoke. It was as if I wasn’t even there.

As I looked around the room, no one met my gaze, they were either staring at the television (which showed different surgical procedures to remove a gall-bladder) or
staring out the windows. I decided to try some conversation and once I made the initial effort the lady across from me answered and we began on the safe subjects about the weather and the season. The weather is always a good way to get people talking…….everyone has an opinion about the weather…..and now is a good time to bring up the holidays. We live in a rural community in South Missouri so we still have the Christian faith and it’s OK to say “Merry Christmas.”

I went out again today and while in the grocery store I gave a hearty Merry Christmas to a lady approaching me from another direction. I had several doors opened for me, by gentlemen and it was nice. Real nice. Just when I think chivalry is dead, someone comes my way with good manners and a smile.

Something’s in the air. Maybe folks really do come to new life at Christmas time and no matter how harassed, out-of-work, or waning faith they may have, it somehow brings out the good in all of us.

If we wear a smile, and say “Merry Christmas” with our hearts, I’m very sure we will be giving the best gift of all………the outward evidence that Christ lives….and He lives in us.

Essentially Esther

The Christmas Spirit hit me hard today. I was well into my usual routine of morning chores when I looked out the window and it was snowing. I was surprised as the weather report sounded like we’d be on the edge. For a while I watched the pig puffy flakes come down but they eventually became smaller and then quit.

It put me in mind of the chorus I would hear back in the 50’s and 60’s when the children were growing up. The first snow of the year was big excitement and pictures kept flipping across my mind……putting snow shoes, leggings, stocking-caps and mittens on….coat, scarfs, whatever.

The mothers who read this will know after getting everyone hitched up and out the door, it would only be about 20 minutes until they were back with all of the above, wet and snow-packed. Before they dried out (no clothes dryer) they were back for more and this repeated until we were all worn out.

In the afternoon “Miracle on 34th Street” came on TV and my favorite of all times, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” was on the other night. Both movies were the new versions so it kept me entertained. Becky’s favorite Christmas movie is “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

One of my favorites is the long ago Andy Williams Christmas Show on TV. Do you remember the bear who always wanted a cookie? It went on every weekly show….the bear would show up, knock on the door for a cookie and Andy would always refuse him. Finally at Christmas one year he actually got a cookie and as he went to take a bite, he looked up and a little girl was standing ill-clad, cold and hungry. The bear looked at his cookie and gave it to her, then walked away.

Christmas is a time to show our love by the simple, little things we do. It’s different for all of us but somehow we attempt to show our love for the Son of God, family and friends. Beyond that are many people, most nearby, who could use a short visit with a plate of cookies and a hug. It’s in the small things that bring the most happiness.

Life’s finest moments come in small packages………

Essentially Esther