Up!

First and foremost, Merry Christmas to everyone, and a happy new year. 2009 has been a very eventful year for me, and now, as it draws to a close, I can look back and smile, thinking of all the adventures that I've had this year. not all my memories are sweet, but they're all endearing, making me who I am today. Its amazing when I look at myself now and compare me to the person who I was just one year ago.

Well, Christmas, what is the message of Christmas. Last night, on Christmas night, I went out to Uncle David's house for dinner and dessert, it was his birthday, and it was Christmas :). When I came home I watched the Disney/Pixar movie "UP!".

For those of you who haven't watched, it, the story is about an old man, who idolises an adventurer in his youth, meets a girl who shares his interest, gets married, promises to take her to Paradise Falls, but in the end, never made it because of the hustle and bustle of daily life. In the end, Ellie (his wife) dies, and he's forced to live alone, forced out of his house by a construction company, and makes the journey solo(or so he thought at first) to Paradise Falls, to fulfill his wife's last wish, which was to take her there, and build a house overlooking the Falls. Needless to say, not all goes to plan, but it has a happy ending (If you need anymore go watch it!)

So, back to the point, after watching that movie, I started thinking, what keeps a person going, when everything that you hold dear, that you hold to is taken away from you? In the movie, the cornerstones of the man's life were his wife, who died of old age, and Charles Muntz, he and his wife's hero, who in the movie turns evil and selfish. You see, people need a reason to go on, very few actually make it through life just puttering about waiting to die.

When i went out today, I looked at faces of the people around me. Its really easy, to see those who have hope, and those who haven't. How would you feel, if you knew that you're stuck in the life you didn't want, with no way out of it, and still feeling bitter over it all? Ultimately, people will either be resigned to their fates or they just give up. Many times, when you look into a person's eyes, you can tell if that person has something to look forward to, or not, or if he's happy with his life, or not.

I think that the greatest Christmas message of all, is not only one of love, but of hope. My church preached all about God's love this year, but didn't say, that when Christ was born on this earth, we were given an undying hope. if you read Proverbs, it is said that a Christian's hope is in the Lord, and that hope will never be cut out from him. I believe thats the true message of Christmas, and it bears the greatest significance for all. The same way Easter is a day of atonement and redemption, Christmas is a time when people should be celebrating God's love for us, to give hope to mankind, who would otherwise languish in eternal darkness. Nice to think of huh? Well, to those of us who haven't anything left to hope in, my advise would be to wait on the Lord. If you think that its impossible to get out of that dead end you're in, you should remember, that with God, nothing is impossible.

Merry Christmas Again :)