Christmas Overwhelm
SO LET EACH ONE GIVE AS HE PURPOSES IN HIS HEART, NOT GRUDGINGLY OR OF NECESSITY; FOR GOD LOVES A CHEERFUL GIVER.
2 Corinthians 9:7
Baby Girl,
Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and center yourself.
Let’s just sit here and cry together.
Breathe.
Everything is okay; but we need to convince that rapidly beating heart of yours.
It’s two days before Christmas and we’re here again.
Remember in 2020 when you thought you finally had an answer for why the holidays always felt so overwhelming?
It was bipolar - brain chemicals. You were relieved when they said if you would take medicine, regulate your meals, maintain good sleep hygiene, and take self-care more seriously, you wouldn’t have to feel this way.
Science can only go so far in explaining away and solving spiritual conditions.
Since we agree that bipolar is NOT why you are feeling overwhelmed, would it be fair to assume that your soul is out of alignment with both your spirit and Mine?
Your tears suggest that you agree. Set a five-minute timer, close your eyes, and think about it.
- 5 MINUTES LATER -
So, Little One, what are we going to do to lay this conflict to rest?
…We’re going to cry harder? I’m sorry I’m laughing but that seems like a silly solution.
There you go… laugh with Me! It’s silly, isn’t it?
…And there are the tears again. Make up your mind.
Let’s break this down:
You love Me. I LOVE you more but we won’t get into that debate. You know I ALWAYS win, hands down, EVERY TIME!
SO, out of your love for Me, you love others. They love you back and often more than you love them. Do you want to know why?
It is My LOVE in you they are trying to reciprocate.
There are very few people who are loving others from a place of sincerity, so when people experience the pure, unconditional, God-like LOVE that you offer, they are drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
You have been told by many women that you are their best friend and you have taken those words lightly because you assume, surely, they have a better friend than you. No one who has said those words to you has said them casually. It took courage to be that vulnerable, risking rejection to share their affection for you, and they meant it.
This isn’t helping - I know. Breathe. You can’t see clearly through those tears, so let’s take a break. Walk around the house and come back to Me.
- 5 MINUTES LATER -
Hot chocolate, two large fudge-stuffed marshmallows, and lemon bundt cake. This whole “eating our feelings” mess is ridiculous but we can talk about that later.
Many women have risked their hearts to tell you they consider you their best friend. Many more feel that way but don’t say anything because they are aware the feeling isn’t mutual.
I’d tell you to stop crying but we are both aware I would be wasting My breath since your heart is breaking. You’re internalizing it all because YOU KNOW how it feels.
You’ve had several relationships where YOU were the one longing for friendship, bringing gifts, and bidding for connection. YOU wrestled with feelings of rejection. YOU tied YOUR worth to their ability and desire to be YOUR friend. Now you fear making anyone who wants that relationship with you feel rejected.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to be everyone’s best friend and IRRESPONSIBLE to try.
Let Me remind you that, over the years, no one rejected you. No one MADE you feel those things. You felt them because you looked for people to fill a void that was only ever intended to be filled by ME.
Each of these women you so earnestly desired to befriend spoke into your life on My behalf in seasons where your soul was too consumed with SELF to hear what I was endeavoring to say to you in your spirit. What appeared to come from them was really coming from ME. You attributed My words to them and latched on. That is what others are doing with you. And you’re still doing the same thing.
Was I the first person you talked to about this today?
NO. I was the second one you poured your heart out to. Do you think the friend you reached out to first about this internal conflict is aware that your struggle with giving and receiving Christmas gifts comes from misappropriated credit for My LOVE?
There it is. Should I say it again?
Christmas has become a season of sharing misappropriated gifts in response to My LOVE.
The meaning your culture has assigned to Christmas causes INTENSELY OVERWHELMING thoughts and feelings for you because of the conflict it creates between your spirit and your soul.
Like clockwork, from mid-November when the festivities begin through January when Christmas is finally put behind you, the conflict between spirit and soul slowly builds to a climax. Let’s AVOID the climax this year because we know that it inevitably leads to a cascading spiral ending in an emotional black hole.
I knew I needed to interrupt your thought process when you started considering buying Christmas cards, addressing them now to everyone who sent you a card or gift this year so you won’t have to think about it next year.
DO YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOU? My baby girl, who LOVES people so freely and intensely all year long, who loves Christmas lights, Christmas carols, and spending time with friends and family, is in her office crying and wishing it were all over because of GIFTS.
You’re fighting hard against the thoughts of how you hate gifts. You hate to give them. You hate to receive them. YOU HATE CHRISTMAS!
But you know that is not true. You only hate gifts at Christmas. Why do you think that is?
You don’t hate when someone gives you a random thoughtful gift throughout the year and you love to give gifts randomly throughout the year. What do you think makes gift-giving so toxic for you at Christmas? Expectations.
You THINK you don’t have expectations of others but, for better or worse, you all do. You fear disappointing the expectations YOU ASSUME others have of you.
There are people you have started emotionally separating yourself from leading up to Christmas, hoping they won’t think of you with a gift. There are also people you know are hoping to get a small gift from you and you don’t want to disappoint them, so you are avoiding places where you could bump into them. You wanted to attend a candlelight service but decided not to because you don’t want anyone else to give you a gift or a card.
You’re crying again. Were you not aware you were doing that?
Go take a shower and, when you get out, I’ll tell you how to handle Christmas in the future.
- 10 MINUTES LATER -
When you go to the doctor and they want to test your reflexes, they tap your knee with a mallet. Reflexively, you kick your leg.
Giving, no matter what time of year, should never be given as a reflex to external stimulus.
A powerful sermon about generosity SHOULD NOT reflexively cause you to put more money in the offering plate. Your giving should be from the motivation of what you have purposed in your heart to give ahead of time.
A request of your time should never be met with a knee-jerk “yes” but an offer to pray about that opportunity. When your “yes” is simply a reflex, it is often accompanied by resentment.
A gift should never be given as a reflex to a gift received or even a gift that, based on history, you anticipate you will receive. When a gift is given as a reflex, it lacks sincerity and is stripped of its value.
You have a hundred arguments welling up in your mind. COMMAND YOUR MIND TO BE STILL. This conversation is intended to renew your mind, not compete with it.
With the enemy’s influence, culture has taken the joy out of generosity by marrying it with expectation, thus creating the mutant offspring of compulsory giving. There is no life, no peace, and no joy that accompanies compulsory giving. The only life it breeds is replication… more of the same.
Compulsory giving breeds compulsory giving.
You have over 500 people in your calendar that you send an annual birthday greeting. You take the opportunity to pray My blessings over them and their family once a year and send a quick text letting them know you remember them.
Do you hear from over 500 people on your birthday?
NO. That would be obnoxious and overwhelming! Thankfully, they do not all feel obligated to reflexively do the same for you. You reach out and acknowledge them joyfully and from your heart. There are no strings and no expectations.
Throughout the year, when you get an idea of something you want to give someone, you can’t and don’t wait to do so. It is given with boundless joy and is often received with the same because it is a gift from the heart, given with great intention.
You ARE NOT the grinch or scrooge because you dislike gift-giving at Christmas.
We can’t change what anyone else thinks about Christmas, and we can’t be concerned with what anyone else thinks about our take on Christmas.
I want you to honor your family with gifts at Christmas and stop there. Those are the only people I want you to automatically give gifts to. I’m not telling you that you can’t give others gifts but I AM TELLING YOU I would rather you give no gift than to give one as a reflex.
DO NOT send Christmas cards. Put the rest of those you have not completed in the fire and DO NOT buy Christmas cards in the future. Christmas cards are a beautiful way people reach out to distant friends and family at the holidays but you have never approached Christmas cards with pure motives. Your motivation has always been tangled with thoughts of obligation and feelings of guilt and urgency.
Do not send out family pictures. No one cares.
I’m laughing because your thought was immediately, “Wait, that doesn’t sound like something God would say!”
Baby, don’t worry. It wasn’t the enemy. It was Me.
This whole mess, this whole conversation, this whole Christmas conflict originated in SELF. When Christmas was simply the story of baby Jesus, the celebration was simple. Culture complicated it.
Just as bipolar is a sign your spirit and soul are out of alignment, this Christmas conflict is a sign that the story and the celebration are out of alignment. You can’t spare the world of mental illness, but you can align your soul with My Spirit and spare yourself.
In the same way, you can’t spare the world of the chaotic Christmas culture, but you can bring your soul and behaviors into alignment with My Spirit. If you choose to align your soul and spirit with Mine then, right in the middle of the chaos, you can have peace.
Remember that when I’m leading you to give, you’ll experience joy. Give from that place.
When someone gives to you, reject all thoughts of guilt, obligation, and resistance, and receive that gift with joy.
The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Don’t let him rob you of a gift or the giver of the joy of giving.
Your family is out there waiting. Go enjoy the gift of their presence.
LOVE,
Daddy
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