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Stacey L. Lacik

~ Common Sense Christian Counsel

Stacey L. Lacik

Tag Archives: Christmas

Fret Not

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Stacey in The Journey

≈ 2 Comments

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Christmas, Faith, Gifts, Holidays, Money, Single-parent, Trust

I think I killed our tree.  Last year was not my fault (the apartment was too hot) but this year I did it.  I don’t know what’s wrong;  I went to put the lights on it, and it sounds like it’s raining.  Needles everywhere.

It is the week before Christmas, and there is no money for gifts.  It’s the most horrible, nauseating, dead-in-the-very-bottom-of-your-gut type of feeling a single mom can have.  Most of the time, I feel sick.  No matter where I am, or what I am doing, I can’t fully enjoy it.  We are in pretty much the same boat we were in last year, and I haven’t yet recovered from last year.  Same scenario, different location.

Constant worry.   

So many bills are unpaid;  there are piles of medical bills, utilities, my daughter’s tuition for spring.  Everything is past due, so late fees keep piling up.  The car needs repairs, or it won’t pass inspection next week.  If I buy gifts for my daughters, or for anyone else for Christmas, even a few, there will be no way to pay the rent next month.  I’m preparing myself now for the annual January shut-off:  no internet, television, or phone.  It seems to be a new and unwanted tradition – dead silence.  Not good for those already struggling with depression.  I know my girls have bought gifts for me already;  we went to the mall yesterday.  Walking along behind them, I thought, they are so beautiful.  I don’t know if they realize that they themselves are my gifts.  Probably not, because they aren’t parents themselves yet (thank God) but like most parents, I want to be able to give them something to open on Christmas morning.  There is a little girl in all of us, no matter how old we are, who wants to come down to a sparkling tree with beautiful packages, and bows, and pretty things picked out by people we love.  People who love us.

I don’t feel merry, I feel grim.  The kind of grim determination you need when you have to head out into a storm, and there’s no getting around it, so you set your face like flint and go forward.  But it is definitely not fun.

We don’t need a small miracle, we need a large one.  Maybe several.  I have mustard-seed-sized faith.  You can see it with a magnifying glass, but it’s there.

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, … nothing shall be impossible unto you. – Matthew 17:20

Gifts and Grace: Christmas 2013

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Stacey in The Journey

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Christ, Christian, Christian Living, Christmas, Family, Gift, Holiday

SAM_0682Today was Family Christmas at my parents’ house in Jamesville.  It means that anywhere from fifty to sixty (?) of us descend on a big white house in Jamesville, and for several loud and crazy hours, chaos reigns.  Kids everywhere- under tables, behind furniture, lined up on the window seat in the bay window in the living room, or running through the crowd of adults in the kitchen.

We’re kind of like a scene out of My Big, Fat Greek Wedding, except that we’re not Greek.  Not even close.  But loud, enmeshed, and hilariously dysfunctional, yes.  And then some.

It used to be that the few family members who were Christians would gather in the kitchen, and everyone else was in the family room, or the living room.  Over the years, as more and more of the family has come to know Christ, the kitchen has become quite crowded, and now the few who are not yet Christians are the minority.

But, we’re crazy.  I pulled my nephews’ girlfriend aside and said “Honey, walk around and look very carefully at these people.  Think long and hard about this;  you still have time to get out.  And this isn’t even all of us- quite a few couldn’t make it!”

My brothers didn’t come with their families, which always makes me sad, and my daughter wasn’t there.  Doubly sad, because this is her twenty-third birthday, but she spent the day with her father and his girlfriend.  Some cousins didn’t make it.

This year was a difficult Christmas for us;  a lot of stress, sadness and disappointment.  My oldest daughter was sick, and we spent hours in the emergency room with her a couple of days before Christmas.  Our tree died.  All shopping was done at the very last minute the day before Christmas, because there was no money to buy gifts ahead of time.

The real gifts?  Sleeping in the emergency room with my girls, overnight, on two small chairs, and watching my younger daughter take care of her older sister.  Being together, even there.  Getting medicine, ginger-ale, flowers, and all the necessary items required for feeling better when you feel deathly ill.  Watching them open gifts Christmas morning, and knowing they were here, together, and both are okay.  Seeing aunts, cousins, niece and nephews, and eating together, and knowing that in the end, this is what matters.  These are the people who matter.

Some Christmases are truly horrible.  But as we get older, the memories of the bad years blend in with all the other years, and it becomes part of your family story.  “That was the year the tree died.”  “That was the year we couldn’t buy gifts;  or we were all sick, etc.”  At least, that’s how I explained it to the girls.  It’s okay that this year didn’t go well.  Next year will probably be much better.  2014 is right around the corner, and all the potential is there for good things to happen;  for more memories to be made, and even maybe a miracle or two.  You never know.  So much good could happen in the next twelve months.  It would be a waste to miss the real gifts of this Christmas, which are the people we love, and the God we worship.

He has truly blessed us, every one.

Mary’s Christmas Dream

17 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by Stacey in Uncategorized

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Tags

Christmas, Gift, God, Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Tree

Gerard van Honthorst Adoration of the Shepherd...

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“I had a dream, Joseph.  I don’t understand it, not really, but I think it was about a birthday celebration for our Son.  I think that was what it was all about.  The people had been preparing for it for about six weeks.  They had decorated the house and bought new clothes.  They’d gone shopping many times and bought elaborate gifts.  It was peculiar, though, because the presents weren’t for our Son.  They wrapped them in beautiful paper and tied them with lovely bows and stacked them under a tree.  Yes, a tree, Joseph, right in their house.  They’d decorated the tree also.  The branches were full of glowing balls and sparkling ornaments.  There was a figure on the top of the tree.  It looked like an angel might look.  Oh, it was beautiful.  Everyone was laughing and happy.  They were all excited about the gifts.  They gave the gifts to each other, Joseph, but not to our Son.  I don’t think they even knew Him.  They never mentioned His name.  Doesn’t it seem odd for people to go to all that trouble to celebrate someone’s birthday if they don’t know Him.  I had the strangest feeling that if our Son had gone to this celebration He would have been intruding.  Everything was so beautiful, Joseph, and everyone so happy, but it made me want to cry.  How sad for Jesus – not to be wanted at his own birthday party.  I’m glad it was only a dream. How terrible, Joseph, if it had been real.”      –Author Unknown

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,”  which is translated, “God with us.”            -Matthew 1:23

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you truly believe." -Gustave Flaubert

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