Remnants of Christmas Past

Yesterday was a beautiful day reminding me that Spring is really coming! So, I went to the park with camera in hand. I was drawn to the trees that had been a delightful Christmas display with colorful tinsel and shiny ornaments. I remembered the day when several people from the town bravely worked out in the frigid cold to decorate those trees. But, today, the ornaments lay crushed at the foot of those fir trees and tinsel was tangled around broken branches. What was once an exciting project was now just a dilapidated memory of a holiday that so many of us dream of and look forward to.

It reminded me of the many times I have excitedly started a new project only to abandon it when the passion waned. I probably didn't even clean up the mess I left behind. Perhaps I need to back up and tend to some of those abandoned orphans. I need to not only start projects but I need to finish them! How freeing that would be to not have a string of half-done projects hanging over my head making me feel slightly guilty by their presence. It would allow me to look forward to the future instead of constantly glancing behind me to see what ghosts are lingering there. So, I encourage you to join me, and put those ghosts to rest by fixing, cleaning and finishing those undone projects!

(Note: Amazingly, though, when I looked close enough, there was still some beauty in the crushed and mangled decorations. The sun glinted off of silvery balls and the tinsel bravely twinkled in the sun. Perhaps there is still some good to be accomplished by resurrecting old dreams....)

The other day as I was rushing to church I spotted an elderly couple walking down the sidewalk towards me. They were all bundled up against the cold but the winter's wind did not seem to phase them. What struck me, as I watched them, was that they looked alike! Their clothes were the same colors, they had the same expressions, they walked in step and even their arms swayed in unison! I realized then what True Love was. It is becoming so intertwined, in an emotional and spiritual sense,that you become like one!

The Bible told us long ago in Genesis 2:24: "...and they shall be one". The Hebrew word for "be" can mean "become". As a couple lives together, they want to make each other happy, so they begin to make compromises. As the years go by, and the compromises (on both sides) accumulate, they begin to act and look like each other. They become one!

Happy Valentine's Day! True Love does exist!