Their number one suggestion, as well as the number one suggestion of the subsequent article links, was to play music. So of course I pulled up Pandora and clicked on my Traditional Christmas Radio...
(Side Note: I know it's too early for Christmas music. I've even made ranting Facebook posts about this kind of thing before, so if you are feeling miffed, just know I'm also feeling mildly guilty.)
...I needed the cheerful energy of some of my favorite Christmas songs to help me feel more like cleaning. As I listened to the lyrics, "Mild He lays His glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth; born to give them second birth;" "Christmas day is in our grasp;" "remember Christ our savior was born upon this day, to save us all...O tidings of comfort and joy;" and others, I began to think about why I love the songs so much, and of course, it's the hope that they make me feel! Even some of the traditional secular songs making no mention of Jesus Christ still convey a powerful gladness and cheer about the season that send my mind hunting down the source of optimism.
In a tumultuous time, both in my own heart and in the world around me, I am reminded:
Hope is in the Word who put on human skin and came to live right up among us; the One in whom was life, and whose life was the light for each of us; and the Light that came into darkness, and whom the darkness could not overcome.
The Nearness of God was made visible and touchable. And Christmas music hits me with that reminder in almost every song.
So happy Thanksgiving to you all. May God remind you of all the blessings He has poured on you and yours, and may He ultimately remind you of the Greatest Blessing.
Love, Lainie
Unrelated Sidenote: The world is broken. I rejoice in its brokenness. Not because of the suffering which it brings, but because in the same way that all men share in the disease, they all may share too in the Remedy.
