Kissmas Time
Posted on December 11, 2006
Filed Under Christian Living
Kissmas Time
An excerpt from Mommy’s Day Out: Gospel Deliverance for the Single Christian Mother
By Davidae Stewart
About five years ago my boyfriend, let’s call him Trucker Troy, stood me up on New Year’s Eve for the second time in the row. Actually-he didn’t stand me up. Apparently all the other truckers at his company took the night off, because his boss needed him more than anyone else. He called me a few minutes before the stroke of midnight, to tell me that he had just completed an emergency stop in Jacksonville, Florida six hours south of my home, and, thus, he would give me my New Year’s kiss via telephone. Minor technicality, but either way his inability to attend Watch Night Service at church with me again rubbed me every shade of wrong. And the fact that I had to settle for a fake kiss on one of the most romantic nights of the year Again distorted any future plans I had for us. Needless to say, Trucker Troy and I hit Splitsville on New Year’s Day, and he married a woman he met three months after the breakup. Go figure.
So why do we gorgeous God fearing women do this to ourselves? Why do we put so much pressure on the holidays than on our spiritual lives?
From the day after Valentine’s Day until the day after Labor Day life is grand for my single Christian girlfriend divas and me. We go to the movies, to the beach, on cruises, and church events: Women thou Art Loosed, Women of Faith, and more by our big, bold and brash single selves. We preach, teach, organize fundraisers, and entertain family and friends without a care in the world. We are on a mission for Christ, the Lord over our hearts and souls. And then we get amnesia.
The clocks turn back, leaves turn gold, and our minds return to that 14kt gold, princess cut diamond, solitaire engagement ring that haunted our dreams last winter, the winter before that and the winter before that. Jewelry store advertisements flood our mailboxes, our televisions, our favorite radio stations, our email boxes and our dreams with this ring. By Thanksgiving the Holiday Blahs have taken over our souls.
Every where we turn the winter wind whispers, “Will you get that ring this year? Is God giving you your very own shiny, new Adam for Christmas this year?”
The months grow colder, and one by one my gals pals change right before my very eyes. All now convinced that the three most important days of the year coincide with romance and rings. The mounting pressure beats down our doors, affects our self worth, and causes us to lose our natural-born minds. We lose perspective and God’s purpose for our lives as we begin a manhunt, more like a man-chase, to find someone to spend these holidays with, and, to justify our femininity.
We don’t want this year to be like last year. We don’t want to be the only woman on Earth without a man. And we don’t want to spend our holidays in a blue funk, because we don’t know that the great romance that we’re seek is right in our very souls.
My best friend, Reverend Ashley Seaman, Associate Pastor for Spiritual Life at Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver, Colorado, shared a poem with me that she wrote to help her forgive an ex-boyfriend, who broke her heart a few weeks before last Christmas. After she wrote the poem she came upon an interesting realization.
“From my life as a minister I already knew that singleness was a season of disciplined waiting (1 Corinthians 7:1). Until last year, however, I finally realized that what arrives on Christmas Day is not always what we were waiting on. But God arrives always and on time. The good news is that our heart’s longing is ultimately a longing for God, so instead of being full of longing on a day that much of the heart of our longing has been fulfilled we should be thankful for God’s gift his son, the ultimate lover of our lives.”
Amen! God is the love that we seek. I understood exactly what she meant, because I experienced the same revelation during yet another one of my brilliant holiday fiascos.
It was the worst and best day of my life. Christmas Eve three years ago my daughter’s father deserted us during a time when my health and our finances were at its worst. I had suffered heart damage during labor, which disabled me and crippled our income. So my daughter and I had to move back to my hometown in South Georgia, to live with my parents. He had agreed to reunite with us at Christmas, move to Valdosta and take the burden off my parents. But at the last minute, he reneged. And my bad memory of Trucker Troy flooded my spirit again. I questioned my ability to raise my daughter alone, to beat this health crisis, to keep a man–I questioned my self worth just from that one old disappointment. And I felt less than worthless.
So as I sat on my great grandmother’s bed, crying in the dark, my daughter toddled into the room, kissed me on my knee and said, “It’s Kissmas time. I give you kiss, Mommy.”
The answer to all my longing lay at me feet looking at me with the brightest brown eyes I’d ever seen, a manifestation of God’s love for me, my daughter, Selah. “And when the wise men had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense and myrrh.”(Matthew 2:11) I realized that my life was a gift to my daughter and she was God’s gift to me. And more importantly, Christ was our greatest gift and he would make all things right for us.
So as Ashley and I rejoiced with each other about what we now knew about true love and about how God had transformed our lives since then I knew that one day I would share this revelation with you.
God is our Prince Charming. He is the greatest love of our lives and until we realize that no other relationships will satisfy us and give us the joy that we seek. Case in point: my many bad past relationships. Thanks to God, however. He moved me to greener and better pastures with a healthier heart, a happier child and a mature and right relationship with a God fearing man. Remember the reason for the season isn’t Romance. The love we seek in romance we already have with the Lord. Be blessed this holiday season.
About the Author
<!–[endif]–>Dee Stewart is a publicist and syndicated columnist. She hosts The Perfect Romance Christian Event Series in Atlanta, Georgia and the Inspirational Workshop Panels for the RT Booklover’s Convention. She is a Christy Book Awards judge and has written for: Spirit Led Woman, Hope for Women, Infuze and Precious Times Magazines.
Mommy’s Day Out: Gospel Deliverance for the Single Christian Mother © 2006 All rights reserved Davidae Stewart
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