Day 22 | Means a little bit more!

We are fortunate when Christmas is found woven in our hearts. I loved the thought of Santa Claus and remained a child at heart, believing as long as I could. Despite my brothers telling me otherwise! The Grinch was a movie you enjoyed during the Holidays and when Jim Carry brought the nasty Grinch to life, we laughed until we cried.
My favorite part of the story is that transformation can occur in the smallest or hardest of hearts. Cindy Lou Who, our heroin, without a trace of fear or disbelief in "Who-kind," loves a perfectly unlovable character. A story of estrangement where love prevails.
And as my family would say, the story leaves us feeling "roosty tootsy."

Means a little bit more...

Day 21...

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...Day 23

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How would you answer that?
Is there a character in the story that can define a season in your life?
Currently or Past?
I will boldly address estrangement. It is a nasty business where nobody wins. Unforgiveness is a prison for the one who will not extend or receive it!

“There in its nasty, stinking, underground home our insulted, crushed and ridiculed mouse promptly becomes absorbed in cold, malignant and, above all, everlasting spite. For forty years together it will remember its injury down to the smallest, most ignominious details, and every time will add, of itself, details still more ignominious, spitefully teasing and tormenting itself with its own imagination. It will itself be ashamed of its imaginings, but yet it will recall it all, it will go over and over every detail, it will invent unheard of things against itself, pretending that those things might happen, and will forgive nothing. Maybe it will begin to revenge itself, too, but, as it were, piecemeal, in trivial ways, from behind the stove, incognito, without believing either in its own right to vengeance, or in the success of its revenge, knowing that from all its efforts at revenge it will suffer a hundred times more than he on whom it revenges itself, while he, I daresay, will not even scratch himself. On its deathbed it will recall it all over again, with interest accumulated over all the years…”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“Someone once said that unforgiveness was like a poison you drink while hoping for someone else to die.”
― Jennifer Heng, Walking out of Secret Shame

Change Happens with Intent

Today we have the opportunity to pin Nastiness on a cartoon character.
Kristen, you might say: is this an appropriate subject for an Advent Christmas Calendar. Is it?
If Christmas means a little bit more...

via GIPHY

Our Hanukkah Story 

Then the heart of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, the walk in the flesh of the Son of God our Saviour is the bit more. 

If you have read my book or listened to my podcast, I have danced with unforgiveness and looked it straight in the eye. 

Forgiveness is between you and God.
You extend it to a person, even to God Himself.
Sometimes God will ask you to make it personal.
Sometimes God will ask you to make some unique kind of restitution.
Whoever you need to forgive, their response to what God is doing in your heart has no bearing. What? You might say.
Forgiveness opens the prison door for you.
The most trying test of forgiveness is when you extend it verbally face to face, and the person rejects you and the forgiveness you are giving. Ouch, it hurts! 


6 Power Points of Forgiveness and the end of Estrangement 

1. Settle it between you and God first
2. Ask Him if He has a response/action assignment for you.
3. Forgive quickly and clean up the mess today.
4. "If" God asks you to go to a person and ask for forgiveness, wait on His timing.       Pray for yourself and the person until He releases you to go. (very important) 
   
5. If God asks you to make restitution: A. it could be for the benefit of the other person. B. The restitution may be unrelated to the original offense or offended.  C. Restitution may be for your maturity. 
6. Forgive yourself 

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I can't think of a better gift for Christmas than the restoration, with God, self, family or friends. 

• Never lose hope for change. 

• Keep the door open for change, 
• Express clearly that the door will remain open when they are ready
• Give them the freedom of will or will not and God the time to love. 

The end of life is not the end of the opportunity. Forgiveness and God's love are eternal. No hate, or sin, death, or suicide, unbelief, atheism, abortion, or horrible misfortune! Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Period!
He is that good of a God. We read the book wrong!
Happy to tell you my testimony! 

And that is the best Christmas Gift I can share with you! That is why it is called the Gospel of Good News.
It's time for the Cindy Lou Who's to believe and get about loving Grinch's! 

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The Grinch is a bitter, grouchy creature with a heart "two sizes too small" who lives in a cave on Mount Crumpit, a steep mountain just north of Whoville, home of the cheerful and warmhearted Whos. He is annoyed by all the noisy Christmas festivities that take place in Whoville, and decides to "stop Christmas from coming." He disguises himself as Santa Claus and travels down the mountain on a sleigh with his dog Max. Once he reaches Whoville, he slides down the chimney of the first house on the square and proceeds to steal all of the presents, the Christmas tree, and the food for the Christmas feast. He is briefly interrupted in his burglary by Cindy Lou Who, a young Who girl, but concocts a crafty lie to effect his escape.
After doing the same to the other Whos' houses, the Grinch takes his sleigh to the top of Mount Crumpit and prepares to dump all of the stolen items into the abyss. As dawn breaks, he expects to hear the Whos crying, but is shocked to hear them singing a joyous Christmas song instead. Puzzled for a moment he realizes perhaps Christmas "means a little bit more" than just presents and feasting, causing his shrunken heart to suddenly grow three sizes larger. The reformed Grinch returns all of the Whos' presents and food and is allowed to take part in the Whos' Christmas feast.
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