During the Christmas season, everyone is usually stuck in the hustle and bustle of everything. From the Christmas shopping, to the family parties, parties with friends, midnight feasts, New Year’s parties, and the list goes on! It is often celebrated with many, many people with everyone contributing a little something to create some sort of grand feast! And as often as this has happened in the past 22 years of my life, “last year” and “this year” (end of 2013/ beginning of 2014), it was different for me. What was evident this season that stood apart from the rest was that the Lord was calling me to a simpler and more intimate celebration.
- Instead of going out with our friends or going to a club or something else for a “Chritmas Event Special”, my sister and I just stayed at the Adoration Chapel before midnight Mass and sang “Happy Birthday” to Jesus.
- We didn’t have a big feast after midnight Mass on Christmas. My family and I just came home to open presents, followed by a game night, and coffee/ tea, yet it was STILL a filling night, accompanied with much laughter.
- Christmas is usually spent with all of our relatives, but this year, it was just my Ninong Edward and his wife, Reyshell, accompanied by a Skype call with my other Ninong and Ninang and my cousins from the Philippines. However, this was the first Skype call that lasted 3 hours – 2 hours of which was spent talking and catching up with my cousins.
- We were supposed to have a New Year’s Eve party with a few CFC families, but it was cancelled because a lot of our family members became ill! Instead, our family ate a simple meal and watched movies while drinking hot beverages, and played games until the countdown.
- After the countdown, the first thing my family did was pray the Rosary.
So what is God’s message to me here?
"PRIORITIZE THE BLESSINGS I HAVE GIVEN YOU; NEVER TAKE ANYTHING - no matter how grand or how simple - FOR GRANTED. I HAVE NEVER GIVEN YOU, NOR WILL I EVER GIVE YOU ANYTHING THAT IS LESS THAN A GIFT."
This is when I was able to look back. Throughout the year, the infamous complaints I have heard from and for myself and/or many others were either…
- “You barely have time for service.”
- “You barely have time for your family.”
- “You barely have time for you friends.”
- “You barely have time for me.” – typically coming from one’s significant other
- “You barely have time for yourself.”
BOTTOM LINE: YOU BARELY HAVE TIME.
We are always given time. We have 365 days a year to balance all of this out! Yet for some reason, we “barely have time”. This season was so simple, yet it was so intimate. When I opened my gifts this Christmas, I realized that they have been the most simplest gifts I had ever received, but they were THE BEST because they weren’t the “give-whatever-you-can” kind of gifts; they were small, simple, but the most thoughtful.
And when it came down to time, I spent as much of it as I could with my family because more than half of the year and about half the days of each week or two, my days are committed to CFC Youth (service), BR/ movie/ “chillage” dates with my friends, and personal time through the Sacraments at the Church. Because I am currently blessed to have my family, CFC Youth, a nearby parish, friends, relatives, and my own house to live in, I have been trying to keep a balance in ALL OF THESE GIFTS so that I may not only feel that they are equally as important, but also so that they may also feel how equally important they are to me too. At the end of the day…
… they are all His gifts that He has chosen to bless me with
… I am called to love them and respect them each as equally as the other
… BECAUSE THEY ARE HIS GIFTS WHICH HE HAS HUMBLY CHOSEN TO ENTRUST ME WITH IN MY TIME ON EARTH, I must constantly pray for direction for when to share my time with God (which is every moment of my life) with them in His time.
Time does not belong to me, nor do any of these precious gifts. Therefore, I must carefully take care of them all, respect and love them all, and not take any of them for granted under any circumstance.
THEY ARE HIS GIFTS - GIVEN, CARED FOR, LOVED, AND GROWN IN HIS TIME.