Happy Holy Days!

thanksgiving day 1

It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night. Psalm 92:1-2

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” -Helen Keller

 

  • It’s time to meet with your precious Savior! He is the Light of the world, the Lamb of God, and loves you more than you could ever comprehend!
  • Read Psalm 92: 1- 15. Write verses one and two in your journal. Pray and give thanks to God for His unfailing love and faithfulness to you and your family. Ask Him to help you to focus your heart on Christ and not get caught up in the what the world says is important at Christmas. Pray for the Lord to help you to be loving and kind.

Happy Holy Days!!

With the Lord’s  help, we can keep the holy days that are upon us from being just holidays.

The word “Holiday” originally meant “Holy Day.”  Sadly, the term “holidays” now simply means the period from November to New Year’s, and has become a blur of the materialistic call  to “celebrate the holidays.”

While there is nothing wrong with making our homes festive and cheerful, we must be careful not to exhaust our time, resources and energy on the less important things.

Proverbs 17:1 says, “Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.”

Last Christmas, my wonderful brother visited our family during an unusually busy season. In the month of December alone, my husband and I traveled out-of-town, our youngest son got married, and we hosted many family members and friends staying in our home.

Needless to say, there was much stress and busyness!

There was one particular incident which stands out in my mind that I would like to share with you. My brother was helping me around the house and asked me where to put various items in an effort to help me tidy up. (I have a great brother!) I was feeling unusually stressed out and burdened with all of my workload that I snapped at my dear, sweet brother. I felt terrible!

I realized later that when I snapped at him, I allowed myself to become overwhelmed with details which needed to be accomplished rather than focusing on showing love to my family.

Showing love and being like Jesus to our loved ones is much more important than having “House Beautiful!”  Have you ever been to a perfectly decorated home that was lovely to look at but the fruit of the Spirt was not in it?

Your family cares more about having a happy mom than they do about having a perfect house. This Christmas, while the magazines and catalogs call upon us to try to do everything perfectly, may we do fewer and simpler things,  with love and kindness.

As Jesus said to Martha “You are worried about so many things, but Mary has chosen the better part.”

May we all choose the better part of focusing on the love of Jesus this Holy day season!

Questions to Ponder: Write the answer to these questions in your journal.

  • What do I need to give up to the Lord to be fully present to my family during the holidays?  In what areas am I tempted to overdo and shortchange my family’s spiritual benefit?
  • What spiritual components can I provide to my holiday celebrations to make them truly Holy days that draw my children to the Lord?

Faith-Filled Ideas

  • Keep Thanksgiving from being squeezed out by not putting up Christmas decorations before
  • Thanksgiving. Keep Thanksgiving day a priority as a separate day to focus on being thankful to the Lord.
  • This Thanksgiving, let everyone around your table have an opportunity to express something they are thankful for before or after saying grace. This will help them be participants rather than spectators. Some families do this by dropping a kernel of corn into a basket and mentioning something they are thankful for.
  • When Thanksgiving is over, let the first Christmas decoration you bring out be the nativity scene symbolizing the priority of Jesus in the Christmas season.

 

Click Here for the Thanksgiving Printable!

thanksgiving-printable

 

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Mary Frieg
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One Comment on “Happy Holy Days!”

  1. Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful heart and life with us mama’s Mary! You are such a breath of fresh air in my life! I thank God for putting our families together! Love you!

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