"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a
tree of life."  Proverbs 13:12

While walking through the mall the other day and seeing all of the
preparations for the holidays, I heard myself saying out loud and felt
myself meaning it, "I hate Christmas!"  This was a shock to me, as a
Christian, to be thinking and especially to hear myself blurt out loud in
public since "Out of the fulness of the heart, the mouth speaks."

Of course, it's not the birth of Christ and all that represents that I was
talking about.  It wasn't even the crass commercialization of that great
event.  At least not directly.  (I wish my thoughts had been that noble.)
It was (you guessed it) the lack of the romantic side of the holidays that
is so prevalent all around and the feeling that if you're alone for the
holidays, there's not much point to them or to you.  You know, the Hallmark
cards kind of stuff, holding hands and walking through the snow together,
drinking hot chocolate by the fire, going to parties together, and on and
on.  That is not love.  I'm not confusing any of that with love.  It's just
romantic sentiment, but I miss it and had myself convinced that this would
be the year, but it obviously is not.  Once again, the hope of that kind of
holiday is being deferred, and my heart (as my mouth testifies) is sick
about it.

As I said the other day, I have had that experience.  Ten years ago I was in
love (or thought I was) and experienced all of that sentimental side of the
holidays.  I was that guy.  This year, ten years later, I am the Grinch.  I
want to set fire to Whoville.  I want to hit George Bailey with a snowball
as he runs through Bedford Falls yelling "Merry Christmas" towards his wife
and children and tell him it's not such a wonderful life.  I want to punch
Rudolph right in his shiny red nose.  And it occurs to me that the reason is
Hope.  The pain is from Hope still being alive when it should just face
reality and die.  It's like a shiny eyed little rodent that keeps gnawing
away despite every device I have tried to use to get through one more
season.

Did you ever have a tooth that hurt so much the dentist had to kill the
nerve?  That's what I'm asking you to pray for, that the LORD would let this
hope for romance finally die so that I can be free of this particular mental
and emotional pain.
Nobody has everything they want in life and certainly this is not a major
thing.
With all of the physical suffering in the world I have a lot of nerve (no
pun intended) complaining about such a trivial thing.  But it does distract
me (as you all know so well) from being about the Father's business, so I
hope you will join me in this prayer for the death of this unrealistic hope.

Paul who thinks Charlie Brown should have saved his money on that stupid
tree