A commitment that will lessen your holiday season stress!

For many, the holidays are stressful.

• Gift-giving brings joy along with concerns that our giving will be appropriate and appreciated.  Worse, is it perfectly balanced among all recipients?
• Gatherings bring family members together along with all of their unresolved issues.
• Holiday greetings (cards, e-mails, letters) encourage us to share the positive while ignoring the more complex realities of our lives.
• Significant unhappy events that have occurred around the holidays tinge the season with a reminder of loss.
• Unrealistic optimism suggests that this may be the year when everything comes together perfectly and we experience what until now has only been imagined.

There’s a wonderful phrase from Scripture that comes to mind often, but is certainly applicable during this season – “speaking the truth in love.”

This goes beyond the ubiquitous advice of our mothers – “If you don’t have something nice to say, then don’t say anything at all” – and encourages us to combine truth-speaking with a genuine commitment to the welfare of others.

Don’t hint.  Don’t lie.  Don’t avoid.  Speak the truth.  But speak it in such a way that you demonstrate your love and concern for the other.

If you don’t want the sweet potatoes with marshmallows, say so, but do it in a way that takes the cook’s feelings into account.  If you’d prefer to not go all out with the lights this year, say so, but remember how important they may be to your spouse or children (this explains my presence on the ladder one evening earlier this week, but also accounts for the absence of our humongous outdoor wreath this year – Judy and I spoke truth and compromised on our preferences.).

May your holidays be blessed with all the joy you can imagine and then a bit more.  Start with a commitment to speaking the truth in love, then hide the scales, and enjoy the company of those you love!

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