December 29, 2007

My Christmas Story!

I spent the Christmas holiday with my family. My entire family meets at my grandparent’s home out of town every year for this festivity.

My grandmother passed away March 8th of last year at the age of 91. She was the matriarch of the family. Her passing was such a great loss for me, she was my root. I didn’t know how to handle these feelings I had. I also found myself blaming certain family members for things that were really beyond their control regarding this issue. Overtime, I somehow disconnected from my family and preoccupied myself with my business. I really didn’t care to go to my Grandparent’s home for Christmas last year because Grandma was missing. I only went because it was a family tradition, somewhat of an obligation, but mainly to appease my mother. It was strange to be in the house and not have Grandma around. I enjoyed myself for the most part. However, still felt very distant from everyone. The void still remained.

When I returned, I struggled with the big gaping whole in my heart and my soul. So I cried out to God to help me heal this wound. The more I cried out to God for help, the more he filled my spirit with His LOVE and dried off all my tears. Literally! Then one day, many months later, God told me to take out a picture I had in my family photo album of me and my grandmother so that I could frame it. I immediately went to the bookshelf, grabbed the photo album and began looking for that photo. But to my surprise, as I was flipping the pages I began to reminisce about the family. All of a sudden, I felt an enormous amount of love for my family: grandfather, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. This feeling was so profound, that I started crying really hard and I genuinely missed them all. It was like God flushed out any negative feelings I had about the situation and replaced those feelings with His Love. It was truly a cathartic experience!

The reason why I’m sharing this story with you is because this Christmas was quite different from the last. I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to get there and hug everyone. It was the same wonderful feeling I had when Grandma was here. Well, needless to say, there was so much harmony in that house. It was amazing!

Love can and will permeate a room or house if you let it. I could feel the love I felt in my spirit reciprocated. When you treat a person with love, respect and acceptance… You can easily bring out the best in another person by doing this one simple act. The other person becomes a reflection of your being. Another genuine lesson I learned was that “Forgiveness IS the greatest LOVE of all”.

“God forgives the most those who love the most”

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