Say what you will about social media – I know it can be an awful place, a time waster, a hinderance to self esteem, and, sadly these days, an amplifier of misinformation. I know all that, and I’ve experienced social media as all of that. But I haven’t given up on it yet.

Why?

Well, because inevitably I come across things that are heartwarming (like the many photos of Christmas trees and other decorations that have been showing up on my feed in recent days); meaningful (like the posts about community projects and church drives to help those in need); and even profound…like this:

I can’t even tell you why this showed up on my feed, or from whom (was it shared by a colleague? A friend? One of those random pages that the FB algorithms decide you’d like? I don’t know! I was smart enough to save it, but not smart enough to notice where it came from!).

But it stopped me in my tracks. This is my prayer for each of us this Christmas. This, I believe, is the way of Jesus. To refrain from taking out our difficult emotions on others, to stay soft enough to allow our hearts to break (especially if a broken heart leads us toward doing what we can to help others), to remember that love is God’s ultimate motivator (the thing that moved God to become one of us in the child born in Bethlehem, and moved that child to become the man who would lay down his life for our sin), to remain kind, always.

We are in the final rush, now. In just a few days the celebration will occur. It may feel overwhelming and like there’s still too much to do, it may be stressful, we could easily find ourselves reduced to the worst of our personality (as stress and pressure often tend to do to people). Today, I encourage you to dwell in kindness and love. We all need it.

This Advent, may you celebrate this season by becoming a little more like the One it’s all about. May you share the gifts Jesus has given us – kindness, tenderheartedness, generosity, forgiveness, and above all: LOVE.