New Beginnings: What Christmas now means to me

So the holiday season ended and so has Njaanworry. Many people saw it as the time to meet up and make merry with loved ones. For many, Christmas is synonymous with lots and lots of food and getting to see all the people you haven’t seen in a long time for whatever reason. In many homes, Christmas is not Christmas if there is no pomp and colour. 

For a long time I was in that group and I couldn’t imagine not having a feast during Christmas. But that’s just what many of us saw as we grew up. It wasn’t really about the little boy that was born but what we would do for ourselves during that time.

Last year I happened to have quite a different Christmas. I had cut my right middle finger about two weeks before Christmas and it was a really deep cut. I could only type with a few fingers on the computer but even that was painful. No touching water for prolonged periods and no looking at the cut for too long because God knows it felt more painful when I did.

It took its sweet time to heal considering all the damage that had been done and I couldn’t speed it up if I wanted to. At one point I thought it was getting worse because it looked really bad and I couldn’t curl my fingers into a fist or stretch them.

After a week, I noticed that it was drying up and the skin looked different. Initially I thought that it would pull together to close up the cut but it didn’t. Now that I think about it, that expectation might have been a little silly but hey, who’s judging? New skin started growing from inside and I noticed that the skin that was cut and bruised was now dead. I couldn’t feel anything when I scratched it and I started worrying. What if my finger is dying? What if it remains open like this forever? What if I never get to fold my fingers again?

The open area dried up completely after a while and I took that chance to catch up on a little cleaning. The dead skin started peeling off and it wasn’t painful at all. I just noticed that my skin was now developing new grooves, you know, like on a fingerprint. All the lines have fallen in place and you may be forgiven for not believing that they had been completely non-existent a few days ago. My finger got a fresh start. No dead skin was used. Every piece of skin I’d been afraid to lose was replaced in full.  

Then a very good friend of mine wrote something that struck me. He wrote ‘The thing about Christmas is that it almost doesn’t matter what mood you’re in or what kind of a year you’ve had. It’s a fresh start ’. It gave me this great reminder and I just couldn’t contain myself! I was so happy and excited that the birth of Christ signified a new beginning in my life. I had it pretty rough in 2015 and I honestly really needed to catch a break. I started praying that I would indeed experience newness, start afresh.

Since I made that prayer (about 5 weeks ago now) I’ve seen that happening. It’s happened in so many ways and some I can’t quite explain. My prayer partner has seen this too and it has truly been a time of renewal for both of us. I’ve seen divine connections for different things I’ve been praying for (spiritual, physical, emotional and others that I can’t talk about yet) and it is awesome.

Christmas has a new meaning for me and it will continue to be. This will be my prayer every Christmas, that as I commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ I would be born anew too. That I would experience a rebirth in every aspect and that I would grow and improve through the year of course until next Christmas. And as this year begins, may your life be new as well. Only the cycle of growth and improvement will take place every year and not constantly coming back to the same level. From glory to glory! To a year of growth!