What have you been doing these last few days? I have been doing all the things I love to do during the holidays which include shopping, wrapping, visiting people, play LOTS of Christmas music on the piano, baking, making cookie trays for friends and watching Christmas movies. I own about 25 Christmas movies (by the way, any movie that takes place during the Christmas season is a Christmas movie from my point of view) and I managed to watch them all this year. Today I was thinking about why I love watching the same movies year after year after year. I know some of them so well that I could turn down the sound and recite the lines from all the characters. I know how they are going to end, but it doesn't matter to me. I still cry when the curtains open at the end of White Christmas and we see that it is finally snowing in old Vermont. I get teary eyed when the angels do their good works in Preacher's Wife and It's A Wonderful Life. There is something magical, for me, about the stories that have struggle, hope and happy endings. My heart loves a happy ending.
Today I was thinking about how much of my life is happy right now - how much of my life has had a happy ending after struggle. I don't take that for granted and I am very grateful for the happiness and fullness in my life. I know that many people are still in the struggle part of their lives and it can be tough to feel the hope or believe that there can be a happy ending; that is a fact of life. I also know that each of us can do something to make someone else's life a little better each day if we just put our minds to it. This has nothing to do with money or material goods; I am referring to a smile or a kind word or the gift of forgiveness or sometimes, simply noticing someone and making them feel valued.
Will you please look for someone each day that could use a little happy ending in their life? A little light? A little hope? and will you share that with them? The best gifts are completely unexpected, but very much needed. Wrap up your own good human nature this season and bless a few lives, will you please? I can't think of anything more powerful than that.
