Little Things for God

By Mary Wollney

Preparing Our Hearts for Christmas

At this time of year we receive a variety of holiday invitations.  Traditional ones come from friends asking us to join them in celebration.  Non-traditional invitations come from both society and religion:

·                    Society invites us to prepare our homes for the holiday. 

·                    Advent invites us to prepare our hearts for Christmas.

We know how to prepare our homes.  But just how do we prepare our hearts???

We do it one trying situation at a time.  Every time we feel ‘pushed’ we are given an opportunity to change and prepare our heart by sharing love instead of frustration.  

Sometimes a visual aid helps: When we are stressed and in a foul frame of mind, that’s when it helps to visualize lighting a candle of love in our hearts.

Candles represent light. When a candle of love is in our heart we feel at peace, which makes it easier to share love.  Sharing love is one way to prepare our heart for Christmas.

As we go about our lives it’s easy for our candle of love to either blow out or completely burn out.  Someone may cut us off in traffic.  Someone may take ‘our’ parking space.  Someone may cut in line at the department store.  They may utter an unkind word.  They may make unreasonable demands.  Every day, all day long, life presents us with situations that can cause our candle of love to burn out.  Darkness results.

That’s when we need to relight our candle.

For example, my friend Sandy called me one morning when I was frazzled.  I had a busy four days flying to and from Chicago for Thanksgiving.  Then I immediately went back to work; working 36 hours in 3 days. Sandy had the misfortune of calling me just as I walked in the door.  My candle of love was not lit and she knew it.

As we were talking I knew I had to change.  Frustration was trapped inside.  Sandy had done nothing to deserve my attitude.  It was as if the devil was at home in my heart.  It was time to re~light the candle of love and treat Sandy the way she deserved.

Like most candles, our personal candle of love can flicker and go out.  Sometimes the candle has nothing left to burn.  It’s then that we need to begin again; to get a new candle and start over.  That’s how we prepare our hearts for Christmas.  One trying situation at a time.

Society sends an invitation to prepare our homes for the holidays.  Advent presents an invitation to prepare our hearts for Christmas. Every time we find ourselves operating from a place without love, it’s time to re~light the candle of love in our hearts. 

May we answer the Advent invitation by Lighting a Candle of Love in Our Hearts.  Remember: every time we relight the candle of love, it’s truly one little thing for God.