Christmas – Andrea Arthur Owan

How to Cope With Grief During the Holidays—Part 1

The holiday season is fast approaching. I can’t believe we’re already into November, and the close of the year is just a squeak over seven weeks away. I’m not ready for it mentally. But at least I’m looking forward to the potential joy and peace of it. Feelings many, if not most people, don’t enjoy during the holiday season.

While many of us look forward to the holidays with joy, too many look forward to them with dread and heavy hearts. Many of us anticipate fun days full of children and grandchildren laughter and squeals of delight, silent nights and flickering candles shared with church family and friends. Roasted turkey in the middle of a table surrounded by grateful loved ones.

But what about the couple whose cancer-stricken child won’t be seated at the table with them this year, or ever again?

What about the despondent mother whose husband has just walked out the door, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to provide any kind of holiday for her two shell-shocked children?

What about the older widow who will have to spend the day alone because her children live a couple thousand miles away, and no one in her tiny sphere has thought of inviting her to join their family for festivities?

Or the aged man confined to a memory care facility, without family members or friends.

Coping with grief (and thriving) at this time of year—

It seems like a morbid subject to discuss during this otherwise festive (market and product-driven) time of year, but that’s the subject I’ll be covering for this month and most of December—

How to make it through the grief that can overwhelm us at this time of year, and help others around us slog through it too.

Aside from recent pain, holidays can open up old wounds. Melancholy and depression can be overwhelming. Just how can we help ourselves, and those around us, get through this time of year with a modicum—or more—of joy and look forward to a new year full of hope and promise?

Our goal won’t be too forget our pain—the circumstances or the people it swirls around—but to work through it. To use it to our advantage, to gain strength and hope from it.

To resist the forces that would bury our hearts alive.

Preparing our hearts for the holidays—

We’ll formally begin this process next Monday. But until then, I want to give you something that will encourage your heart.

Remember that God is for you, not against you, no matter what others insinuate or what your broken and disillusioned and shocked heart may tell you. Or what the evil one may whisper in your ear.

God stands ready, willing and able to hold you close, carry, or walk you through it.

And for those of you who look forward to the holidays with rejoicing, be on the lookout for people who need comfort and a tender, encouraging word.

And maybe a place at your celebration table.

Until then,

Prepare to dig and go deep, with yourself and others.

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

The True Meaning of Christmas Joy

Have you sung this famous Christmas carol yet during your celebrations?

“Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king.”

It’s an uplifting, boisterous song, oozing happiness and promise.

Are you feeling the joy it describes?

For many, Christmas is a season of deep joy and peace. For others, the lights, decorations, presents, celebrations, and peace to all men of goodwill talk are the polar opposites of what they’re experiencing in their homes.

Their lives are a stark reminder of why Jesus had to come to Earth in the first place.

And all of the trappings don’t erase their pain and suffering.

And it’s also likely that the “joy” so many are experiencing is not real joy at all but temporal happiness that changes as circumstances change and disappointment sets in.

But the promise of Christmas is the real, everlasting joy that Jesus brought to Earth over 2,000 years ago and still offers us today.

But His joy had little to do with temporal happiness or comfort, as His life demonstrated.

As David Brickner says in the December Jews for Jesus newsletter:

“[The joy set before Jesus] (as noted in Hebrews 12:2) had very little to do with His personal happiness on earth. Certainly, Jesus was looking past the shame of the cross to fully restored fellowship at the right hand of the Father. But that joy before Him also included the prospect of relationships He would enjoy with those who put their trust in Him. And I think He also had in mind the joy that His suffering would make possible for you and me.

“Jesus’ joy became ours when we trust in Him, and remains ours as we enjoy true fellowship with Him regardless of life’s circumstances.”

That’s a statement to meditate on: Jesus’ joy was based on the joy that would result for us from His suffering. He suffered so we might experience joy. And that act brought Him joy.

But for a moment, let’s go back to the song.

There’s another phrase in “Joy to the World” that says, “Let every heart prepare Him room.”

The message from Scripture, David’s words and the words of the song are clear: without Jesus residing in your heart, it is impossible to experience or possess true joy.

While God gave His son because He loved the world so, the truth is that we must believe in that Son in order to have eternal life, to avoid perishing. To have joy, in all it’s heavenly splendor and depth of meaning.

And one more thing about that wonderful Christmas song.

It wasn’t actually written for Christmas—the birth of Jesus—at all.

It was written about His return. A future hope. His return to Jerusalem to establish His kingdom on Earth.

As David Brickner also says:

“When you sing that carol will you be thinking about the little town of Bethlehem or about Jerusalem? There are only sixteen miles between those two cities, but for Jesus, that journey took a lifetime of endurance and suffering and death so that He could bring forth an eternity of joy and rejoicing.”

So this year when you’re belting out “Joy to the World” at your Christmas Eve service or church service Christmas day, or as you continue to hum and sing it through the rest of the year, I encourage you to think about not only Jesus’ miraculous birth but the joy of His return.

And while you’re at it, make sure you share that joy with others, so they, too, can experience true joy, regardless of any circumstance they face.

That’s the best gift you could give anyone!

Until we get together next Monday, I pray you

Have a truly blessed Christmas,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Ben White on unsplash.com

Enjoying the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I just love this time of year. The lights, the celebrations, the dressing up in Christmas finery to attend plays and parties. I listen over-and-over to Christmas songs I’ve heard and sung a million times, spend too much, eat too much, and stay up way too late binge-watching Christmas movies, which we now have a healthy collection of in the Owan home.

In spite of the world’s sorry state, we can set aside the sometimes-drudging reality of our lives to live in wonder—the wonder of heaven tearing open the thin veil between Heaven and Earth, God’s spirit indwelling human flesh, the beginning-of-time prophesy being fulfilled, the hope and promise of prophesy yet to come, the real beginning of the march toward Easter sunrise three to four months later.

I don’t care if the dead of winter really wasn’t the Lord’s true birth date, or the Catholic Church borrowed the green winter solstice tree from the Druids and Celts and re-invented a celebration in order to appeal to the pagans to join the church. (Happy Winter Solstice Day, by the way.) I don’t even care that celebrating birthdays was a pagan tradition (who knows that kind of stuff now, anyway, except the Jehovah’s Witnesses, some Messianic groups, and trivia buffs?) and Christians didn’t want to celebrate it because of that. (The real practicing pagans believe that evil spirits lurk around during days of major changes, like the day you turn a year older.)

Jesus said, “I make all things new.” And this time of year, I’m going with that.

The genius author Charles Dickens managed to re-focus Christmas into a worldwide celebration, (if you haven’t seen the movie The Man Who Invented Christmas, you’re missing out!) where people set their hearts on others and try to bring joy into someone else’s life (and there are a lot of people who need some extra joy). Dickens shed light on the terrible plight of the poor (which he had experience in) and opened people’s hearts to look around them, to see beyond themselves, to lighten the burden of the downtrodden and disadvantaged.

To make people think about how God views our attitudes and behavior toward our fellow man. (Something that should stay with us all year.)

Of course, we have gotten carried away with the commercialism, but we can turn away from that and enjoy the holiday for what it is—a time to truly turn our hearts toward and honor and celebrate the birth of the man known as

Immanuel (God With Us)
Wonderful Counselor
Almighty God
Prince of Peace

In the back of my mind, I know January 2 is coming, when the festivities will end, I’ll need to reconcile my checkbook and finances, my monthly income will drop like a rock for half the year in order to satisfy the social security taxes due for 2019, and I’ll be back to living out the day-to-day, which isn’t always very exciting, or forgiving.

But today, and for the next several days and especially Monday night and Tuesday, all day, I’ll be celebrating. It’s a veritable peek into the wedding feast of Heaven I’ll enjoy some day.

I hope that’s what you’re celebrating too!

Until next time—quiet or boisterous—make it a very Merry Christmas!!

After all, if you are a follower of Jesus, you have MUCH to celebrate!

So Rejoice!!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Christmas: When Love Came Down

I really miss performing in yearly Christmas pageants and musicals, especially at church. Not only did the dramatist in me love them, they were truly my first introduction to Jesus, (that I can remember), and who He is. An introduction that shaped my vision and view of God and of Christmas itself very early in my life.

But as in so many churches, ours has gone the way of a worship band playing on a “stage,” with nearly every aspect of High Church ornamentation and ritual stripped away. And I’m left with playing old Christmas programs CDs on my stereo system and blaring the beautiful old songs—that taught about God’s love and majesty and His son’s miraculous birth—throughout my house. They bring back warm memories.

One of those particular programs is called “When Love Came Down.”

But we don’t always think of Christmas that way, do we? When Love came down. When the Creator of the Universe chose to come to this mean earth in the form of a lowly baby, with one purpose in mind: to restore mankind’s relationship to the Father and provide a way for us to spend eternity with Him.

He gives that opportunity to everyone.

Now that’s what I call love!

Perfect, sacrificial, unconditional love.

Love goes way beyond how we normally regard it, how we conceptualize it. And amazingly enough, science backs up the power, majesty and mystery of it! Here are just some of the ways love unleashes its power on us (compiled by Guideposts Editorial Intern Alyssa White for Feb/Mar 2018 issue of their Mysterious Ways magazine):

According to the HeartMath Institute, the heart produces a strong electrical field that can be measured from several feet away.
When asked to rate foods, people in loving relationships experienced sweet and bitter foods—even water!—as sweeter, reported the journal Emotion.
A UC Davis study of 32 couples found that staring into your beloved’s eyes for three minutes can cause your heartbeats to sync up.
Love letters are good for you! An Arizona State [University] study showed writing affectionately about someone you love—either romantically or platonically—can lower your cholesterol.
Cuddling and holding hands releases natural painkillers like oxytocin in your brain, according to data from UCLA.
A German study found that men who kiss their wives before work live five years longer, earn a higher income, and are less likely to get in a car accident.
A study in California noted that gazing at a photograph of a loved one can measurably decrease physical pain.
When a mother focuses her attention on her baby, her brain waves synchronize with her baby’s heartbeat, the HeartMath Institute says.

And here’s a fact that drives home just how powerful—and lasting—real love can be:

The heart never forgets. Neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall observed that heart transplant recipients sometimes retain their donor’s memories.

That last one is hard to fathom, isn’t it? But it tells you where memories may really be stored.

In the heart.

When I think about Jesus and His love for us, I find it more amazing.

He came to Earth with the sole purpose of saving us; of giving us a hope and a purpose; of providing the way to eternal life through his death and resurrection.

He did it because He had us in His heart. You, me, everyone.

And He still does. Two thousand years later.

He never forgets us.

And that’s what Christmas was and still is about.

When Love came down.

If we spend our week leading up to Christmas meditating on God, Jesus and that mysterious, miraculous love, I have no doubt our heartbeats will sync and our lives will be much sweeter!

UNTIL NEXT WEEK, (Christmas Eve), meditate on Jesus and His love, write and send a love letter to someone special, dig out a photo of a loved one and meditate on it, and spend some time cuddling and holding hands with your sweetie!

Ain’t love—and its power—grand!

To explore more interesting facts about love, go to Guideposts Love Facts. (Guideposts.org/LoveFacts)

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

When Life Reschedules Your Week, and You Go With It

Do you ever get to a point where you feel as though you just don’t have anything to say?

I got to that point this week, which is why I didn’t have anything pithy to write for my Friday post. So I didn’t.

Actually, I think I was more pre-occupied with other events going on in my life this week that pre-empted any original thought.

Another week when life got rescheduled—

I’m still struggling to recover from my bone spur surgery. That seems to be coming along, although it’s still a one-day-good, the next day not so much experience. But then the right knee I injured while on Camino has started to give me fits. To the point that I sometimes have difficulty walking on it. Actually, more than sometimes. I think I’m headed back to the doctor sooner rather than later. Even though I have a degree in an area of sports medicine, and I’ve a multitude of injuries, it never ceases to amaze at how injuries of any kind can make you feel so tired, and (sometimes) sick!

Then my younger son decided to come home early for the holidays. Either he really misses us, or he just needed time in familiar, soothing surroundings to, as he put it, “clear his head, be able to think, and get some sleep.” I guess the first semester of law school does that to you!

Anyway, we’re thrilled to have him home; and I needed to stock the house with a lot of food, which included buying his favorites. That meant a grocery store run I hadn’t penciled into the schedule.

We managed to catch a long glimpse of the space station as it circled past us. Can’t remember the last time we were treated to that view. (I wonder what the astronauts are doing for Christmas?)

Then my beloved had a medical procedure yesterday morning that required my attendance. All day.

Suffice to say that life just slowed down for us, we visited a lot with one another, decorated the Christmas tree, enjoyed egg nog in our moose mugs, and made final decisions on Christmas gifts. And we slept in REALLY LATE this morning (Friday)! It was glorious.

So I still have nothing profound to say today, but I will be back next Friday with a final Christmas post for you.

And be sure to join me Monday when we’ll look at the mysterious ways of love!

Until then,

take some time to really enjoy all the season gives you! And don’t feel obligated to take part in everything available to you. Save some energy to really enjoy a few things.

Blessings,