Stealing Holidays

(Note #1: Friends, please accept my sincere and humble apology for not having this blog active for the past two weeks!  Insurmountable technical difficulties prevented this.  I've been in Israel and Italy having a positively, incredibly wonderful experience.  I want very much to tell you about it; please check out my travel blog at www.rockingthruworld.blogspot.com.)

(Note #2: To the reader who asked for help with a relationship in which her boyfriend's family is not treating her well, I'll respond tomorrow, now that I'm happily back home.  Sorry for the delay!)

Situation:  Shannon and Bernie had a wonderful courtship of three years.  Everything between them seemed perfect.  Bernie was incredibly thoughtful, remembering every anniversary, birthday, and holiday.  He brought candy, gave Shannon expensive beautiful presents at every occasion.  They had a lovely wedding, then moved to a new town for his job.

Shannon doesn't remember exactly when things started to turn sour on holidays.  After several children, Bernie started losing his temper (to the point where everyone was crying!) on Christmas.  He admitted, "I hate holidays."  This was really the worst of the verbal abuse.  But it continued year-around.

Lessons learned:  Abuse is abuse is abuse.  An adult shouldn't ruin any holiday for any person!  Yes, the children will get incredibly excited; isn't that wonderful!  Yes, there will be extra duties for mom and dad to get ready.  Are you so selfish you can't fit in a little more shopping or decorating?  Bernie was just an old-fashioned bully.

Outcome:  After years of trying to get Bernie to go to counseling with her, Shannon was smart, decided to 'cut her losses', leave Bernie, and give the children a happy life.  Even then, he tried to make their lives revolve around him at times.  Bernie is alone on holidays.  Who knows - or cares - if he is happy?

Our Takeaway:  When you think about it, most of our holidays involve God.  On Christmas, we celebrate Jesus, the Son of God's, birthday.  On Thanksgiving, we give thanks to God for our blessings. On Easter, we celebrate Jesus' Resurrection from the dead.  Even on patriotic holidays such as the Fourth of July, we thank God for America and Freedom to worship.  God so loves us and wants us to be happy!  We need to create happy holidays for those we love!