What about Christmas????

Sorry, sorry, sorry - for so many reasons.  I'm tackling a really hard topic here and in order to do this well, it's going to take some time and I really wanted whoever reads this to understand how I got to where I did, so I apologize in advance for the topic and even the length of the post!  Do not feel like you have to read this all at once - you could be here all day!  Read it when you have a larger chunk of time, with no interruptions and please, maybe even pray about what you are about to read even before you read it as the enemy is going to come at you and make you hate me and all that you are about to read! :) So take it in, slowly, prayerfully and see if what you read makes any sense at all.......

I was trying to avoid thinking about this one.  Every year it is the same - summer is over, it seems, for just a few days and suddenly there are Christmas decorations!!  It has to be getting earlier and earlier and according to a friend of mine who just went over the border this past weekend, it is.  The border guard told her that is exactly what is happening...no longer is it just after the American Thanksgiving holiday....the Christmas shopping madness is starting way before that now.  It is no wonder that I start feeling stress and want to get all the shopping done in October to avoid that feeling of being so overwhelmed by all that I have to do. 

But now we're trying to get out of debt and seriously out of debt, as in pronto.  Wouldn't Christmas kind of slow that down?  Well, of course it would, but in the name of keeping the magic of Christmas, there is NO WAY, and I mean NO WAY, I'm taking the gifts out.....right????  Please say right.

So for days now I've been trying to have RM sit down to discuss this as I need to know what we're going to do so as to avoid the stress levels that will start to rise as December approaches.  He was often too busy to sit down and have the full conversation I needed, so I just kept putting little thoughts in his head so he would start thinking about it himself. 

Meanwhile, my kids are involved in an amazing program that has them memorize whole books of the Bible and then four times a year they have a tournament where they quiz against other kids who have done the same.  I don't honestly know how they do it, but in a matter of weeks they've memorized the book of James.  They'll use a variety of techniques, but one of the ways is through the use of a cd that we'll listen to over and over again in the van as we drive.  A truly incredible benefit of this is that not only do I hear it all day, but the little ones do as well, including my three year old.  I must try to include a little video some day of him spouting off the first four verses of James 1.  It is absolutely the sweetest thing....but I digress.......

Back to James.  As I waited for RM to sit with me, chapters 4 and 5 of James kept playing over and over in my head.  Believe it or not, but this is the second time we've memorized this book.  The first time was four years ago when we weren't Bible Quizzing, and it certainly impacted our family, but there were a lot of verses I memorized that I knew just didn't apply to me, so we memorized them anyway, but just kind of skipped over any life application part when we read certain verses.

This time, something different was happening when I read those verses.  In fact, something has been happening to me for some time now, especially since we started to kill debt with a vengeance.  I can't help but read Scripture in light of what we're doing.  Often I read Scripture this way.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Now, please keep in mind, this is what God is speaking to me and my family, so don't go all crazy on me, just read as an outside observer.  If God wants to speak to you in the same way, he'll confirm it through his word to you as well.

Ok, so James 5 was one of the passages I loved to read thinking it did not apply to me,

"Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.  Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.  Your gold and silver are corroded.  Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.  You have hoarded wealth in the last days.  Look!  The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you.  The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.  You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence.  You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.  You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you."

See what I mean?  I wasn't rich, at least relatively speaking, so I automatically skipped over the rest of the passage.  I didn't have gold and silver.  I certainly had no workmen crying against me, no harvesters at my door.  I was real glad I hadn't condemned or murdered anyone.  But that was the way I thought 4 years ago. 

This time, as I listened to it, I started to cringe.  One day as I played the cd in the van, I stopped it and quickly said to the kids - this whole passage could be about debt!  But it talks about murder?  That can't be us.  But then I asked them, do you really think there were all sorts of dead people lying around when James wrote this or could it be he was speaking not just to murderers, but to those who have metaphorically murdered?  If in fact he is only speaking to murderers then I get to skip over this passage and a whole lot of other passages in the Bible, but I don't think that is how the Bible is supposed to work, right?  When I read it, I truly try to think how each passage in the WHOLE Bible applies to me. 

So in light if this, how have we condemned and murdered??  How about our bank account - it should be alive and thriving, but, well, it's not.  How about an inheritance for my children?  Have I left one or have I been living in self-indulgence?  What about murdering peace in our lives?

I don't think it is a stretch to say I've "condemned and murdered innocent men" - who are these "innocent men" - how about the grandchildren that will come one day.  By "living in luxury", am I not establishing a pattern that will ultimately ruin them?  If my children learn about money from me and see all my patterns, then they will automatically pass these on to my grandchildren, won't they, these innocent children who aren't even born yet?  Is that not condemning them to a life of stress and debt before they even enter the world?

Where am I going with all this....

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas shopping.  I love buying my children things that represent each part of their personality or skill-set.  I love seeing them happy.  I love seeing them excited about the wonder of what is under the tree.  I, uh, love getting gifts myself.

What I hate is the stress I start feeling at the, don't laugh, end of October beginning of November.  I hate trying to make RM sit down and help me work through what it will look like.  He hates how much more I want to spend and how I go way over budget year after year.  He hates watching me drive, no joke, all over the map to get a good deal, leaving at all times of the day, having to work out child-care, being gone hours at a time, not to mention the gas spent......just to get home, wrap for several more hours, put under a tree, get it ripped open - then, the little ones, who haven't quite learned contentment complain there are no more gifts, the older ones are quite content, but are amazed when they see a toy break soon after Christmas Day or we notice the special toy sitting on a shelf un-used only weeks after Christmas. 

It's like the verse in James, "Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.  Your gold and silver are corroded.  Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire." 

Would it be a safe translation to say, "You've overspent creating more debt and even though you have more stuff, it isn't really yours.  The stuff you do have is about to break or sit unused on a shelf.  That broken stuff is going to create more stress in your life and will affect you emotionally, mentally and even physically."?

RM was sick these last few days which helped me - I had him cornered!  He didn't feel like getting off the couch, so I trapped him and once again brought up the conversation he loves to avoid - Christmas and Christmas spending - what were we going to do????  I had to know once and for all, sick or not sick.

It was a hard conversation and it didn't start off pretty because RM has always wanted to take Christmas down a notch and I never have.  He's always wanted to stay on a budget and I always want to make sure everyone is, let's say, well taken care of (including me!)  Put it this way, we haven't seen eye to eye on this matter for 18 years.  I teach younger women to submit to their husbands all the time, but it never occurred to me that this was an area I was not submitting to him in, until I read James again with him that morning.  

Listen to this, "What causes quarrels and fights among you?  Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?  You want something but don't get it.  You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want.  You quarrel and fight.  You do not have, because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.  You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?  Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us ENVIES INTENSELY?  But he gives more grace." (4:4-6)

I have had multiple layers on my eyes and another layer came down that day.  Suddenly I saw what I was doing, why we'd been "quarreling and fighting", struggling for years with the Christmas issue, because I wanted something and I wasn't getting it.  I didn't think of it as coveting, but I guess it really was.  I was really "killing" (I know that sounds harsh, but I think in a way, it is true) RM by making him carry a financial load he wasn't prepared to handle and by giving into me year after year, I helped us dig a pit deeper and deeper.  Oh, well the Bible says, I should just ask God for what I want and he'll give it to me - wrong.  I'm not receiving because I've been asking wrongly - I just want to spend what I want, when I want, any time I want "on my pleasures" even if it isn't just for me, but for my kids. 

Another ouch - suddenly I saw it.  My behaviour was really reflecting friendship with the world, and even associated me with adulterous people.  This behaviour says I'm an enemy of God.  But, but, but....I wanted to cry out.

But then again, I'm reminded of what Paul Washer, one of our favourite preachers, says - God is a jealous God, he "envies intensely" and he "gives more grace".  This simply means, he saw me way off, not just a little off, the path, and he reached out with his long arm of grace and he has been trying, probably for years, to get me back on the path, but this was the first year I heard him and saw him reaching out to me.  I'd been quenching the spirit's voice for years.  Now, as James says in 4:17, I knew what to do and "anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."  Nooooooooo!!!!!!    But yes!!!!  There is freedom coming!  Suddenly, everything was clear and I knew what we needed to do!

What then?  Do we just throw Christmas away forever?  I don't think we throw it away forever, but we knew we couldn't do what we've done in the past, how could we, especially if there was still debt in our lives.  After reading these passages together, I had my moment of epiphany and I apologized to RM for all the years I had ignored him in this area of Christmas.  I really am a fairly submissive wife, honest!  But I'd never seen this until that day.  Oh, the process of sanctification is painful, isn't it?

Then we called all the kids together and we shared with them how memorizing James was impacting not only them, but us as well!  We brought up the area of Christmas in particular and they started to wonder where it was going!  But they agreed, something drastic had to change, at least for our family, for this year and maybe until the debt is all gone. Christmas is about Christ, coming to set us FREE, not put us in more bondage, yet year after year it was just that, oh, the irony!

First we thought just a smaller budget, but it still felt like we really shouldn't even be spending at all when there is still debt on our shoulders.  Then we thought, no gifts.  Pause for effect.  No gifts.  We looked up wondering what their reactions would be - "Sure, yeah, that makes sense."  What?  No crying?  No fighting us?  Nothing.  They completely understood - immediately.  One of them admitted he was a little disappointed, but was completely on-board.  I couldn't believe it.  But they knew James backwards and forwards, too.  None of this was new information.  If anything, they grasped it before I did.

The next day, that same son, came down and said, "Listen to this, Mom," - and he quoted James 1:22-25, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves (I'd been doing this for years!).  Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what is says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does."  He said, "We can't just say we want to get out of debt and then go and spend all sorts of money."  I was very proud.  He got it.

For those who are now panicking, thinking we are legislating this for all families, even those who are in debt, we are not.  Let me make this perfectly clear.  This is just what our family has decided - for this year.  We are not sure exactly how this will play out this year or next year or how long this is in place.  We are taking it a day at a time.  We know gifts will come from other places (i.e. grandparents, etc) and we'll take 'em!  :)  We know others long to bless us and we aren't legalistically saying no gifts in any form just to make a point.  I think that would exasperate our children.  No, we are saying, for a time, we are trying to take God at his word and by doing this the Bible promises, we "will be blessed in what he does", meaning we don't know what it will look like, but we feel we've been overspending for years and by not spending we actually think we'll be more blessed!  Think about it. 

As soon as we'd made the decision to lay low on the gifts this year, a peace, a freedom, came over me that I've never experienced at this time of year - suddenly all panic was gone.  Suddenly I didn't have to take the hours it sometimes takes, to shop, to talk with RM about budget, about lists of gifts, about childcare, about when I'd go out to do all the shopping - this has freed up literally DAYS for me this season.  Think of all the things I can do now with that time!  Perhaps this year, I'll really, really celebrate the freedom Christ has brought to me!  It is amazing!

If you are wondering, I'm still going to decorate - I love decorating.  I will still take the kids to Christmasy events (there are a lot of free events out there this time of year).  I'll still make a turkey (we have tons of frozen ones in the freezer, our own!)  I will still give handmade gifts to neighbours and family.  But we'll just not dip into the bank anymore because quite frankly, there just isn't a budget for it and I've pretended there was (do I sound like a broken record?) for YEARS!!!!!

Hey, I'll put this out there, if you like challenges, join us in this radical statement, but always be careful in your approach.  We don't dictate these types of things to our children and I wouldn't recommend that you do this either.  It must be done in a loving conversation, with everyone together, prayerfully and with Biblical reasoning, not just because it's the new fad.  If you do decide to do this, be warned, you might just experience the same freedom I am!