Holiday Season: Remember

Remember
If you are able to be honest with yourself, and you are feeling especially introspective this Christmas season, remember back to last Christmas time. If you had thought forward to the 2008 calendar year, what would you have asked for from God?

Maturity and growth as a person? I can say that my experiences this year have taught me, maybe more than any other year. Being a parent teaches, being a pastor teaches, being a coach teaches, and being a player does too. In a year of success, I realize that it was the sporadic failures that helped me mature. The long nights sitting up with a crying baby, feeling helpless. The long nights sitting up with my worried thoughts, praying my tennis players would heal fast, feeling hopeless. It is interesting that at the end of a year, I would have never asked for failure and difficulty, but they perhaps were one of the most important gifts I received.

What else would you have asked for? Friendships? Hopefully the tennis season provided us all with a chance to deepen relationships, and hopefully those memories will continue to keep us close to each other. Or perhaps those experiences will lay the grounds for new relationships when we are outside of Bethany Christian.

Maybe you would have asked for success? A Sectional championship? A good season? Anybody (Seth, Matthew, Russell) ask for an undefeated season? I don't think that we can ignore the fact that God blessed us with good gifts throughout 2008. We worked hard, and were rewarded. That's one way to see that God is good.

Christmas seems like a good time to remember that!