Christmas Remembrances - Martin Wiles

For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

~Isaiah 9:6 NLT

As I age, I yearn for the Christmases of my childhood.

Being the first grandchild in the family for the first four years of my life meant a great deal of spoiling—by parents and grandparents. Although I don’t remember those years, pictures relay the joy and giving that took place. Before my paternal grandmother’s retirement, she bought presents with abandonment and worked to make Christmas a special day for everyone—especially the grandchildren. Waist-high presents lay under and around the tree, waiting for eager little hands to open them.

But Christmases at my maternal grandparents' house was more practical. They were into the fellowship—telling stories, hunting, cooking, and eating—rather than giving presents. One or two gifts were all I could expect.

When my giving grandmother retired and could no longer afford to buy mounds of presents, Mom took over the tradition and continued it until she retired. Now, my wife tries her best to keep the abundant giving alive. But things have changed.

My early Christmases were about togetherness. The togetherness lasted for hours—even days. They weren’t pop-in visits from children and grandchildren. We hung around, talked, laughed, hunted, and watched ball games together. I never heard, “We can be there at ___, but we must leave by _____.”

Amid my childhood Christmases, we always remembered the reason we were celebrating: to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. He overshadowed the presents rather than the other way around.

Parents, grandparents, and children said blessings at my childhood Christmas meals. As at Thanksgiving, we remembered God was responsible for all we had and enjoyed.

My childhood Christmases were also times of joy—and not just over presents. We were glad to see each other, to celebrate Christ’s birth, to eat a meal together, and to open presents. Just to enjoy one another’s company.

Divorces and remarriages have now changed the structure of our immediate and extended family, multiplying in-laws and grandparents and dividing our time into tiny increments that temper the joy of being together. Although some of the things from my early Christmases are missing, I still enjoy the Christmas season.

Don’t let the changing seasons of your life steal the real meaning of Christmas. Remember the birth of the Savior, and celebrate it with family and friends.

Father, I celebrate the birth of your Son—and giving as the real meaning of the Christmas season. 

I invite you to try my newest book, Grits, Grace, and Grands, in eBook or paperback. If you are a grandparent or just want to hear grandparent stories, this book is for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

A Proper Thanksgiving - Martin Wiles

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 NLT

Call me a sentimentalist, but I have my own ideas of what constitutes a proper Thanksgiving.

I remember the good ole’ days when we gathered at my grandmothers’ houses to celebrate the holidays, Thanksgiving among them. My paternal grandmother and grandfather had only two children: my father and his sister. Mom and Dad had three boys, and my aunt had a boy and a girl.

We all gathered at my grandparent’s house on Thanksgiving Day to celebrate. The kids sat around the kitchen table while the adults assembled in the dining room. And I remember when I reached that milestone and could graduate to the dining room table to eat with the adults.

My grandfather was a ham man and always cooked and sliced the ham. I don’t remember us celebrating with turkey, but my grandmother provided the trimmings. When we finished, we milled around doing various things: sitting and talking in the living room, watching a ball game on television, and playing in the fenced-in backyard.

We said our goodbyes around midday and drove thirty miles down the road to my maternal grandparents’ farm. Here, we repeated the same procedure. Mom had one sister who had three children. They lived fifty yards away, so getting to Grandma’s house required no driving for them.

But that was then, and this is now. I thought things had changed, but after talking with my middle brother, I guess they haven’t changed as much as I thought. All three of us brothers are now grandfathers and gather with our children and grandchildren on Thanksgiving and other holidays.

Still, I would love to add the great-grandparent level and see everyone gather at my mom’s house. I miss the part where we gather at the person’s house who stands the furthest back in our genealogical line. 

But really, a proper Thanksgiving includes much more than family gatherings. Paul encapsulates it in this one verse: give thanks to God in all circumstances. He wrote this long before anyone proclaimed a Thanksgiving holiday in America or any other country.

The holidays can be difficult. We miss the gatherings. We miss the ones who once gathered with us. Death is the lifetime thief that no law enforcement officer can capture. And times can get tough when circumstances come against us.

But circumstances should not determine our thanksgiving or joy. Regardless of our circumstances, we can know God is in control, loves us, blesses us, works all things together for our good, has mercy that endures forever, and has an eternity planned for us—all things to be thankful for, whether our Thanksgiving gatherings look like the ones we long for.

So on this Thanksgiving, observe a proper Thanksgiving.

Father, help me always to remember to thank you in all circumstances and at all times.

Tweetable: What Thanksgiving memories do you have? 

I invite you to try my newest book, Grits, Grace, and Grands, in eBook or paperback. If you are a grandparent, parent, or someone who wants to learn from grandparents, this is the book for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

 

Wrestling with the Past - Martin Wiles

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until dawn. Genesis 32:24 NLT

She often found herself wrestling with the past.

Some days, she felt she won; on others, she wasn’t sure. Beth was the oldest of three siblings. They grew up in a loving home, but one thing scarred her memory: the words “I love you.”

Beth could only remember her father speaking the words when she was a young girl. Somewhere along the way, he stopped telling her. But she could never remember hearing those words from her mother. Her sisters confessed they hadn’t either. Their home had a loving atmosphere, but it would have been nice to hear love and see it in action.

As adults, the siblings psychoanalyzed their parents. Although both parents grew up in loving homes, neither experienced homes where love was spoken. Beth decided before she married and had children, she would say the words she had rarely heard. She was tired of wrestling with her past.

Jacob wrestled with his past, too. He had stolen his older brother’s birthright, then tricked his father and stole his brother’s final blessing. His brother hated him and swore to kill him. He ran. Many years later—while returning to face his brother—he wrestled with God over his past mistakes.

We all have things in our past that we wrestle with. Ruminating about the misery of our mistakes or the foul atmospheres we endured does nothing for our present or future. Only as we think about what we can do differently—or avoid altogether—are our present and future affected. Beth decided she wouldn’t be a prisoner of her past. When she married and had children, she often said, “I love you.” Jacob wouldn’t be a prisoner either—even if it were painful.

Our past can haunt or help us. The choice is ours. We are who we are because of our history, but we can also change who we are because of it. There’s much we can learn from our past—positive and negative. The past is set in stone, but our present and future are pliable. With God’s guidance, we can enhance them both. A part of us is what we were, but most is what we choose to become.

Are you winning when you wrestle with your past?

Father, help me use my past to my advantage rather than allow it to destroy me.

Tweetable: Are you wrestling with your past? 

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When God Forgets - Martin Wiles

And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins. Jeremiah 31:34b NLT

Things began slipping away…things I didn’t want to lose.

Memory. An interesting thing. When I was young, I had no trouble memorizing—anything, or a lot of things. Even in my twenties—while in college with a professor we called the “grocery list” professor because of the long list of items he made us memorize for tests—I sailed through the class with no problem, making an A with ease.

Then it happened. In my late thirties, people's names started to escape me. Then other things. My wife became my memory board—until she developed a brain tumor and struggled with remembering herself. Now as my age progresses toward retirement, I exercise my mind in numerous ways, hoping my ability to remember will hang around a little longer.

I discovered recently that age isn’t the only thing that affects remembering and forgetting. While attending a training conference for teachers, I decided to take a class on technology, taught by a gentleman who was my age. Since I teach middle schoolers, I thought I might pick up some new technology ideas I could use in the classroom.

I did, but I also discovered why my middle schoolers can’t seem to retain anything. The rapid advance of technology, which makes knowledge available at our fingertips, has shortened the short-term capabilities of our younger generation. They struggle to memorize—or don’t even try—because they don’t have to. If they want to know something, they google it.

While most things I don’t want to forget, some things I do want God to forget: my sins, in particular. And according to Jeremiah, He will when I ask Him to forgive me. How God can forget when the Bible pictures Him as omniscient (all-knowing), I don’t understand, nor can I explain. The best I can say is He chooses to forget. With me, age takes care of forgetting. With others, it might be busyness or brain damage. With God, doing so is a choice.

God wiping my sin slate clean bears importance. If He didn’t, He would still hold me accountable. That would bring His punishment—presently and eternally. But because of what His Son accomplished on Calvary’s cross, God can clothe me in Christ’s righteousness when I come to Him for forgiveness. This involves His forgetting my sins. If He didn’t choose to forget, He couldn’t clothe me this way.

When we stand in this wonderful position, we no longer fear God’s condemnation. Instead, he loves us and has accepted us into His family, with all the fringe benefits. His forgetting our sins should prompt us to love others and to do good for them as God has done for us. It should also lead us to stand in daily appreciation to our loving heavenly Father.

Has God forgotten your sins?

Prayer: Father, we thank You for forgetting our sins and clothing us in the righteousness of Your Son.

Tweetable: Has God forgotten your sins?

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Making Memories - Martin Wiles

When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. Genesis 3:8 NLT

One by one, the pictures came from my daughter by text. Twenty-year-old pictures. Pictures I’d never seen and didn’t know she had.

My daughter was reminiscing—something her busy life lets her do only occasionally. This time her memories took her back twenty years to a three-day hike she took with my middle brother and me. A hike we started at Carver’s Gap, Tennessee, on the day after my younger brother got married. A hike that began with a steep climb up log steps, but a hike that then carried us over bald after picturesque mountain bald.

None of us had ever witnessed such sites in person. Now, my daughter wants to go again. But she’ll have to take her boyfriend this time. Age, disease, and accidents will keep my brother and me from going—although we’d like to.

But the hike was not all about the scenery, even though the trail carried majestic sites. The hike made memories of time with family. Memories she’s now reflecting on twenty years later. We walked, talked, and sweated together. She was only twelve at the time, but the memories are etched in her mind, never to be removed.

Adam and Eve had some good memories, too. We don’t know how long they made them before sin entered the picture and God booted them from the garden as punishment, but prior to the Fall, they enjoyed walking and talking with God in the cool of the garden.

Technology has impacted the making-memory process. I love technology—its convenience and the expanse of its reach—but I also miss what it has taken away. When I visited family and friends in person rather than through text, email, messenger, and Instagram. When I actually hiked with someone rather than just looked at pictures. When busyness hadn’t taken me away from the more important things.

Making memories with others through shared experiences brings value to relationships and enhances our short lives. But as important as these relationships are, they don’t compare with the even more important shared experience we should have with God. He’s given us His Spirit, His Word, and His people, and giving personal time to them all helps us make memories that trump the temporary pleasure technology often delivers.

Take time to make memories, especially with God. You’ll never regret it.

Prayer: Spirit, may we make precious memories with You and others.

Tweetable: How are you making memories?   

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.