So what am I getting my wife this Christmas?

 So what am I getting my wife this Christmas? 

You are asking yourself this question whether it be your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other. Problems are simmering in the relationship if the question is not being asked. Worse if you cannot answer it.

The proposed answer to this question evokes feelings, emotions, thoughts. Not in touch with any such feelings? The question is not being asked? Then something is not quite right. Something is bubbling in the cauldron. 

Is the relationship recipe changing? Is the recipe lost? Are you, the chef not keeping up with the changing tastes? Have you become ‘out of touch’ as it were? Do you think you are losing the love of your life?

A quick text message, twitter or Facebook comment will not answer this one. The answer is drawn from within and responds to one’s own feelings, emotions, thoughts about relationship. The answer is equally found outside of oneself. Thank God, help is available!

December begins a season when we are directed toward our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts – especially toward others. Extend a gift of love to another and in the act, you find truth about the Giver and the Receiver. 

Love sometimes appears as a mysterious thing. You can’t experience love without giving it away. And to give love away requires feeling, emotion and thought. Even to say to ‘give love away’ sounds mysterious if not strange. The feelings, emotions, thoughts experienced are mysterious as they are not manifest in the object of the gift but in the act of giving and receiving.

December is the time to practice ‘giving love’ so we may cultivate the right feelings, right emotions and the right thoughts.  This practice is similar to practice in general. Didn’t get it quite right the first time? No problem. Try again.  Didn’t quite get it right the second time? No problem. Try again but a little differently.  Keep at the practice and eventually you can’t help but get it right. You will not perfect ‘giving love’ but you will get it right.

December is the ‘giving love’ season. Christians call it the Pre-Christmas season or the  Advent season. ‘Advent’ season turns our focus toward adventure. During Advent Christians prepare their feelings, emotions, and thoughts to appreciate the birth of Jesus the Savior as God’s sign of ‘giving love’. In this case, we are the Receiver not the Giver. 

It’s great to be on the receiving end.