In this episode we are finishing up our mini series surround Christmas. Today we are talking about what makes the perfect Christmas. As we celebrate Christmas on December 25th, let us remember the real reason for the season that is upon us.
Merry Christmas, my friends. Praying The Lord's peace upon you may his face shine upon you and as you draw nearer to him, he would draw nearer to you. In Jesus ever lasting, powerful, and mighty name Amen.
Connect with me as you journey on in your mindset transformation! Now offering life coaching as a service, click the link below to get schedule a call with me.
In this episode we are finishing up our mini series surround Christmas. Today we are talking about what makes the perfect Christmas. As we celebrate Christmas on December 25th, let us remember the real reason for the season that is upon us.
Merry Christmas, my friends. Praying The Lord's peace upon you may his face shine upon you and as you draw nearer to him, he would draw nearer to you. In Jesus ever lasting, powerful, and mighty name Amen.
Connect with me as you journey on in your mindset transformation! Now offering life coaching as a service, click the link below to get schedule a call with me.
I'm excited to connect with you! Remember, you can do hard things! "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"- Philippians 4:13
*Affiliated with Painting Miracles, INC & Certified Life Coach through the I-A.M System
Hey friend, welcome to the Restore Mind podcast, where we are going to be talking about various life topics surrounding mindset transformation. Imagine what it will look like to have peace in your life, despite what the world is telling you. Hi, my name is Caroline, a wife, mom of three, and makeup turned fitness enthusiast. I am here to help you build a strong mindset that will propel you forward into a life of peace and joy. Philippians 4. 13 says, I can do all things through him who gives me strength. Well, my friend, there is freedom waiting for you. So if you are ready to build a 2. 0 version of yourself, then this podcast is for you. So grab your water, or whatever you like to drink, throw on your walking shoes, and let's get going because it's always 4. 13. Hello and welcome to the restored mind podcast. My name is Caroline, my friend. How are you doing today? I'm so excited to have you here with us. If you are a new listener, welcome to the restorative, my family. I'm so excited that you here. If you are a returning listener, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day and making the choice to join me each week. As I release a new episode. My friends. I can't believe that Christmas is only five days away. It's going to come by really, really fast. I feel like this month just flew by. Here at the restorative mind for this entire month, I've been doing a mini series and it's been surrounding Christmas. So week one, we talked about. Forgiveness and Christmas and how it reflected on God's choice to forgive. And that was the promise made in Genesis. God was already in the works of our salvation when sin entered the world. We looked at Genesis three 15. Where God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. I shared how in this verse, God is promising to make enemy of women and Satan and all of their offspring that remember Eve's offspring would eventually lead to the birth of Jesus. And in that same verse of Genesis three 15, God is also promising to send someone who will bruise or crush. The head of Satan. Now, whether it's forgiving yourself or others. I know that it's hard to navigate to when we try to do it ourselves and let our emotions rule over us. I know what that's like, I've lived it. It's hard to navigate through. I also mentioned about Peter when he asked Jesus Lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him as many as seven times. And Jesus responded by saying, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times. And in that episode, I also talked about how that verse means that we can forgive in layers or over and over again until it's been released from us. So that was the recap of week one. When I talked about forgiveness and Christmas. Week two. I talked about family and Christmas. In this episode, I shared about how the holiday season can bring families together. But I also recognized in that episode, that family dynamics looks so differently amongst. Each home because we're all different people. We have different stories. And different things that happen to us. I reflected on how families within the home can have struggles and difficulties and. that can make the holiday season more difficult. We also reflected in this episode on the hope that is Jesus. And because of him we've been adopted into God's family. I pulled from Galatians four, seven, where the verse reads. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons. God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying. Hubba. Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son then an heir through God. now I know that was a quick recap of the miniseries that I released, but if any of these caught your attention. And you're curious to hear more. I would recommend and highly suggest that you go and listen in on either forgiveness and Christmas or family and Christmas. Today, though we are going to be talking about the perfect Christmas. What makes the perfect Christmas. So when you close your eyes or whenever you daydream about the perfect Christmas. What comes to your mind? Maybe it's already happened and a certain memory is coming to your mind right now. And you're just kind of reliving it in your own head. Maybe it's Christmas music playing in the background. While snow was falling outside and yes, I'm thinking about a hallmark movie again. If you joined me last week, I talked about hallmark inspired families. And so it just kind of inspired this example here. Or. Maybe when you're daydreaming about Christmas, you are thinking about not having to worry about whatever your struggles are currently. Right. You want to be at peace and have assurance that everything. Is going to be okay. And you're waiting for that moment where you can take a breath of air and not feel like you're breathing in doubt in fear or worry instead, you're simply at peace. And you have the calmness that you've been searching for. Christmas for a lot of us is a joyous occasion. It's a wonderful time of the year. Because we are traveling, maybe we're gathering to see family or friends and we're hosting Christmas lunches or dinners. And we're excited to see the people that are in our life. Essentially, we're just making new memories and that's all part of the fun. But for some of us. Christmas. Isn't a joyous occasion. Your Christmas could be looking different. This year for many reasons, some of which it might be finances, right? Maybe our finances are a little bit tighter because the economy has been so bad this year. Maybe you're grieving a loved one, and this is your very first Christmas without them. And so your space, your house, what feels like Christmas to you? Doesn't quite feel like Christmas because your heart is empty. A piece of you. Ended up leaving with that loved one. Maybe something traumatic happened in your life and. This time of year marks the anniversary of that traumatic event. Or maybe. You're experiencing separation from family in any capacity. Deployment is one of them. Divorce is another. Maybe it's work or something else. And by the way, I have to stop the episode really quickly and just say, thank you to our men and women who are serving our country and are deployed and cannot be with a family this year. I know that around the holiday seasons, it can get a little bit harder. Because you're enjoying maybe seeing pictures or just videos FaceTiming for a quick minute. To be with your family. Who's back at home celebrating. I know that they miss you just as much as you've missed them. I've been on that side? Well, my husband's been deployed and I've been on the home front, but I know it is like to feel separated from your family and while your. Enjoying time with your family. That's with you. You can't help, but miss your significant other. So my heart goes out to you, my prayers go out to you and I'm so grateful that you're serving our country. I know that it probably doesn't mean anything because all you're thinking about is your family, but just know that I hear it. The restored, my podcast, you have not been forgotten about. All right. So I had to say that because I just felt the need to. But sometimes we can hear a heartbreaking stories around this time of year. Right? And we think in our minds, or maybe we even say out loud, how can something like this happened? It's Christmas. And in our mind, do we want to believe that Christmas excuses, the life stuff from happening? So the hardships of life from happening. Sometimes we think that the Christmas magic is not having to struggle, feel pain and sorrow. We want to believe that the Christmas magic means nothing bad can happen. But the truth is that every day isn't a happy day and that's to include Christmas as well. So the question then becomes, how can we celebrate when we don't seem to have the Christmas spirit with us? I think the best way to answer this question would be. To talk about what Christmas is not made up of first, and it's not made up of office parties. It's not about the kind of gifts that you receive or what you gift to someone else. It's not about how perfect your decorations are. And I'm saying that for me, because I know that I can get caught up in that. It's not about your idea of a perfect family or a work perfect Christmas vacation. If you take one. Really, it's not about anything that we do. Am I saying that you cannot do these things to celebrate Christmas? Absolutely not. I truly believe you celebrate how you want, but I'm encouraging you in this episode to not get distracted because Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. And recognizing that through him, we have received the promise that has been given to us. That I spoke about earlier in this episode. And I also talk about it in the episode called forgiveness and Christmas. The birth of Jesus means that salvation awaits us and we get to decide if we want to accept his invitation or not. The world, however, has turned Christmas into a marketing strategy that can distract us from seeing the real reason for the season that we have today. Now I admit I love Christmas It's one of my favorite season. Partly because of the decoration. In my Facebook group this week, I haven't talked about the word. Perfect. And how I used to say the phrase. It has to be perfect. Really pertaining to anything that I was doing now, this mindset actually really came alive around this time of year when decoration was in full force. I'm not a huge decorator in my home for the holidays, but Christmas is one of those where I truly enjoy seeing all of the lights and the glitters. And so with that in mind, I had felt for a long time, like I never had enough Christmas decorations. I always wanted more. And. I wanted everything all at the same time, I would look into a particular space in my home and I can already picture. A Christmas tree in that corner or some type of Christmas decoration to. Sprinkle a little bit of the Christmas magic. If you will, into my house. So why am I sharing this with you? Well in the, it has to be perfect mindset. Especially this time of year. It took my eyes away from Jesus. And yes, I understood that. The reason we have Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. But that wasn't at the forefront of my, mind. That was actually in the back of my mind and everything else came forward. So Christmas decorations, the kind of gifts, how much I spent making sure that everything was perfect because in my mind it has to be perfect. So those words made me believe that anything less than perfect was not enough. So I kept striving. For more and feeling unsatisfied every single time. This also relates to my everyday life outside of Christmas. And pre-restorative mine era. Because it hindered me from trying new things and challenging myself. There's a lot of doubt and fear that came to mind. And that's another episode for another day. But I'm telling you this, because what you say to yourself, your mind will eventually believe. Your words are powerful. And they have meaning, even if you think that they don't. So, what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, the perfect Christmas is not anything to do with us. It has nothing to do with our struggles. It has nothing to do with how maybe our family has broken up Or how our family is separated. It has nothing to do with the hardships that we are. It's not about hosting the perfect Christmas dinner or going on the perfect vacation and having yourself this ideal life for yourself. It's not about. The perfect Christmas decorations. It's not about any of that As everything to do with God, keeping his promise to us. Jesus is the wonderful gift from God because he loves us so deeply. It's it passes our understanding that he made a way to be with us when sin entered the world and separated us from him. So James one 17 says every good gift. And every perfect gift. Is from above. Coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. I just read from the ESV version. And I'm looking at the NIV version and it says Whatever it is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God, our father who created all the lights in the heavens, he never changes or cast a shifting shadow. And in the footnotes of that verse, it also reads he never changes as a shifting shadow. Does. Now going back to how God loves us. That's it passes our understanding. Our boundaries on love changes as we experience life. We set boundaries to try and protect ourselves from getting hurt again. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't. But I'm saying sometimes our boundaries can be so close to us that we're afraid to push these boundaries. Do you forgive a little more to be a little more graceful? And so. It says that. Oh, God. Never changes as a shifting shadow. Does. So, what you read about him in the Bible is true. He says his words are true and trustworthy. And so he doesn't shift from that. If you send the same set a hundred times before you finally came to repentance and said, Lord, I'm done with this. I don't want anything to do with this. He would still forgive you the same as he did on day one as day, 100. When we delight in the true reason for the season, we can begin to see that Jesus is the perfect Crispus and not just aren't this one particular day, but every single day of her life, where we begin to seek him and set our mind on things above we are transformed and we become. Changed. There is full restoration. That's happening. When we begin to live in peace and seek things that are above and set our minds, that aren't things that are above. This Christmas season, maybe very little is going according to plan. And perfection feels like it's way out of reach. If you are a perfectionist like me, you know what I mean? I'm a recovering perfectionist. I still am. Learning to let certain things go and just be. It is something that I feel the Lord is working in me and through me. And I've been enjoying the journey because when I look back on. This particular pruning season in my life. There's so much peace that's happened, but anyway, if you feel like very little is going. According to plan. And again, perfection feels like it's way out of reach. My friend, I encourage you to fix your mind on things above, see that the Lord is good. The birth of Jesus means that we have been saved by grace through faith, and it wasn't anything that we ever did. It was a gift from God. It is a gift from God. He made a way for us to be with him again. That is the perfect Christmas. A promise kept. A family rooted in, love our rock during the ups and downs of our life. That is the perfect Christmas. Now I have to wrap this episode up and I know it was short. but I didn't plan to keep you here very long today. I just want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I know that I've been talking about a lot of hardships that we are probably dealing with, or really the reality of what some of our Christmas might be looking like. I hope that I did not put a damper on your holiday spirit, but I wanted the series to serve you in a way so that you can be encouraged to find the good and the not so good moments of your life or that perhaps it inspired you to point someone to the light. If you know that they're struggling as well. My friend. Don't lose hope. The hope is in Jesus. The promise kept. Look to the light of what has been gifted to you. I know that it can be hard, especially when you're seeing so much darkness around you, but my friend, you. can do hard things. Hey, thank you for listening. If this episode has spoken life into you or your mindset transformation journey, please share it with a friend. The growth of this podcast is possible through you. So thank you for your support and for being a part of the family. I look forward to talking to you again next week here on the Restored Mind Podcast.