Christmas and Wilmer

I heard one of the most illuminating messages at a Christmas church service this year. It was by my friend Pastor Wilmer Urgelles. I asked him if I could post his message. Enjoy...:

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I was trying to bring a teaching on how to celebrate Christmas but I could not find anything in scripture about the celebration of Christmas. Yes, we have what we call the account of the birth of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke... But it doesn't tell us anything about how we should celebrate the season. But this year I've learn something about this season that will change the way I celebrate Christmas for ever...

For many years I have struggle with guilt during the Christmas season. Guilt because christmas goes by and I feel that I failed to make a deep spiritual connection with the season. After Christmas I often say: "Next year, I am going to make it more meaningful... But somehow, when Christmas comes, I get rapped up in the same mess, so I feel guilty...

Can you relate?

It seems that during the Christmas season we need to switch to a faster gear if not we stay behind...

For me it begins right around thanksgiving... My wife is a Christmas season fanatic... A well decorated Christmas tree is not enough... The entire house gets transformed into a christmas palace...

So for me the Christmas season starts early November with the reminder to put in my calendar a day to go into the attic and bring down approximately 8 plastic containers and some cardboard boxes... And that is not including the Christmas tree... That is where the christmas stress begins for me... Because For the next three weeks I am reminded at lease three times a week to take a day before thanksgiving to bring everything down from the attic...

And it's not just bringing the things down... My wife needs help with the decorations too... And after everything is out of the container, guess what I need to do? You guess it. I need to put all the empty containers back up in the attic.

I find it hard to make a deep spiritual connection with that...

Part of the stress of Christmas season is finances too... How much are we going to spend? Thank God for my wife that always puts a little bit of money aside so we can have something to spend on our kids... As our kids get older, it becomes harder to please them...

But is not just the kids... You have gift exchanges with co worker... Gift exchanges with your kid's class mates... Then is figuring out what to give... What is this gift going to say about me?

I find it hard to make a deep spiritual connection with that...

Then you have the actual shopping days... Have you ever been to Toy R Us during around this time? My wife and I were there last Sunday... You can smell the stress... And it stinks a little...

I find it hard to make a deep spiritual connection with that...

But then we get to Christmas week and we go to church that Sunday and we hear a message about the real reason of Christmas...

How ironic that we need to be reminded of the real reason of Christmas during the Christmas season... I thought the reason we created a Christmas season was to remember that our savior was born... And yet we need to be reminded during the christmas season? That doesn't make sense. Does it?

But at least we take one day to stop and think of Jesus. The truth be told, we take a few hours of one day, out of approximately thirty days, to remember Christ and make a deep spiritual connection with the season. I find it hard. I don't know... It feels like if we are trying to fit something in that doesn't belong.

Then we get to Christmas day and that is a wonderful day... You get to see your children happy, playing with their toys... Except those who just got cloths for Christmas... You get to open the your own gift, which in many cases you already know what it is, but you sound exited anyways...

Three hours later your kids are playing with the box the gift came in... And Christmas quickly is forgotten because we now focus on the new year...

But off course, the stress of Christmas is not over for me because my house stays decorated until the new year. So you know what that means? Another trip to the attic. Take down the plastic container... Take down all the decorations... Then, the last trip to the attic and Christmas is finally over... Till the next November...

Wilmer, you sound like the Scrooge. Well, that is not my intention...

Celebrating the birth of Christ has nothing to do with what happens during the Christmas season... It has nothing to do with gifts to make an impression, or spending a lot of money, or giving lots of gifts, or eating lots of food... Christ has nothing to do with stress or a hurried life...

Some how, the way we feel and the things we find ourselves doing during this Christmas season stands in complete opposition with how Christ makes us feel and the things he teaches us to do... So I wonder, does Christ really fits in this season? Does Christ fits in any season? you can't confine Christ to any season. Christ is not Christmas. Christ is so much more than Christmas...

If we learn anything about celebrating the birth of Christ from scripture is this: When Christ was born two things happened... The angels proclaimed to the shepherds that a savior was born. They came, they worshiped, and they told everybody they knew...

They worship Christ and they proclaimed Christ... And that cannot be limited to any season because we are call to worship and proclaim Christ every day of the year...

I know, some of you are just realizing: "Wilmer, you are the Scrooge". No... On the contrary.

I told you that I have learned something this season that will change the way I will celebrate the rest of my Christmas and that is that I can enjoy this season for what it is...

Let's enjoy this season for what it is.... Without the guilt of trying to make this season spiritual. It is not...

If you want to make a deep spiritual connection with the birth of Christ you need to worship Him and tell everyone you know about your savior! And that we could do every day!

with child Blog (more like rambling than blogging)

Hello everyone!

Well, just in case you haven't heard, Lucia and I are expecting another baby. Lucia and I have come to an agreement to have 3 kids. Well, number two is on it's way. We've been trying for a few months. If you ask Lucia, we haven't been trying to prevent it. I'm extremely happy! Olivia needs a little friends. Lucia took a pregnancy test on Mother's day and surprised me with the news during lunch at Masitas.

I was really happy to hear the news. Then it quickly hit me. Alot of things went thru my mind. Some of it was financial, since we recently lost the restaurant, but I know God will provide. But my biggest concern was whether or not I could love another child as much as I love Olivia.

I spoke to Wilmer, my good friend and old pastor. He and I have spoken about this topic before. Lucia and I love Olivia so much that it hurts. It's the kind of love that you don't think you could have for more than one person. But Wilmer is wise in his ways. As a matter of fact, Wilmer is so wise that one day he saw Mike cleaning up a deck and asked him... oh oh.. sorry.. went on a tangent there (inside joke).

Wilmer said that God gives us the capacity to love all our children. And just like the love we have for our spouse is different than the love we have for our child, the love for a second child will be different.

I've heard message about child idolatry. They teach that adoring our children is not right in the eyes of God. But I disagree. I think that God has shown us how to love our children the way he loves us. He loves us so much, that he was willing to give up his life for us. (John 3:16)

It concerns me because we've all seen families in which one child seems favored over the other child. That kind of stuff can mold a child to grow up in-secure about themselves. I know that fairness isn't a reality, but I want to make sure that all my children feel like their mom and dad love them with all their heart.

Lucia and I have spoken about adoption and that's been my biggest concern. What if we adopt a child and I unconsciously don't give that child the same amount of Love. Or what if I over compensate and don't give enough to my nature born children. Oh goodness!

At the end of the day, I have to trust God.

We have to seek Him and trust that He will give us the capacity to provide for these children and the capacity to love them. And to trust Him to guide us to raise them correctly.

It isn't news to anyone that Olivia is a very under-socialized and misbehaved little girl. It's mostly my fault. I spoil that little girl. She has me wrapped around her little finger.

But now, it's going to bite us in the butt. She's so used to being the center of attention, and here comes a new addition. Someone that's going to demand alot of attention, more than her for the first year for sure. It's scary stuff.

I went to visit my cousin Amy and Olga-Lidia the other day. I went to carry my cousin's new born, and Olivia went nuts with jealousy. Oh my goodness! It's going to be hard. So.. we're going to put Olivia in a summer camp / daycare to try to get her better socialized and get her a little more independent. God help us.

So.. that's the list of my concerns. Got to trust in God.

We didn't tell our family about the coming baby till my birthday on May 23rd (the day of the Lost finale). It was a great moment. Lucia had me make a wish before blowing our the candles and then we shared that our wish of having a little brother or sister for Olivia is coming true.

My mom went nuts. She was so happy. For one.. it was because she and my grandmother had been claiming that Lucia was pregnant since Mother's Day (the day Lucia actually found out). They said Lucia was glowing. She was happy that her suspicion was right. It was kinda scary that she asked on Mother's Day if Lucia was pregnant without us having had told anyone.

Poor Lucia's mom was confused because we announced it in English and she only understands Spanish. Our friends and family were very happy for us. Tiana, Argelio and Rosemarie expressed their happiness about being there when we first announced it.

Well that's the story till now. I'm going to try and take a page out of Natalie's book and blog about the pregnancy. I tried it with Olivia on BabyZone.com, but I never really got around to it. Well.. it also had alot to do that no one uses BabyZone.com. Lucia didn't even use it. She uses BabyCenter.com. Well, now BabyCenter.com has community area that's like a social network for parents and it has a journal area. The few things that I posted on BabyZone.com, I posted them on BabyCenter.com. This will be our first post there about the new baby. So.. from now on, we'll be blogging about the baby over there instead of here. So visit the link below

http://community.babycenter.com/profile/withchild

By the way... withchild won't end up being our user name. It will probably be LuciaGarcia. For some reason BabyCenter.com chose that for us.

Hope you don't have a headache from reading my blog.

God bless,

David

P.S. Please forgive my spelling and grammar. I am a product of the Miami-Dade Public School System.