Have a truly restful Christmas

Putting up a site specific garden shed yesterday with 2 of our WFD guys- a new project for the carpenters shop that's taken 18 mths to finalise but its now done; its designed lines look good . Building is fun, and we all had a great time. I was surprised by just how much fun it was and so i think were some otherswho didn't sleep the night before.

Doing something together is clearly what we were made for. All our money, our power and influence, or lack of all three is all completely irrelevant --just weakness and dross - when we get together !

And it all can show, oh so clearly, at Christmas time . So what do we do when that scary weakness is exaggerated, not only by being annoyed by your partners bad habits on the way to the big doo, but by meeting face to face to face, as it were, with the same annoying habit in triplicate across the table?; and those oh so predictable family style jokes and that strange chorus of foreign laughter .- i don't get it, and worse still it makes me feel like drinking too much !

So what do we do to prepare ourselves for the inevitable, as we try our very best to be nice- our very smiles about to crack, like the drying icing on that lovely white faced cake; The risk of a fight , or harsh words that may seem to destroy the very fabric of our "good time together" .

Here is what we can all do ! We can be remind ourselves of our weakness and His strength. Not only that , we can do it in the face of our very real fear that everything could blow up in our faces at these gatherings;

This little boy grew up to become the great gift that takes all the hurts and dumps we make on others and brings us together inspite of them . He knows the cost of those deep cuts that could kill-the depth of our weakness. God has done something we could never do, and he's done it to help us enjoy this time .

We can look forward to this time with hope because we can literally see beyond the biggest hurdles- the biggest barney. He 's done it to help us with our deepest need - to be together - to be reconciled to each other .