Each year I always try to make our Christmas edition newsletter align with our appreciation for Christ, our small way to acknowledge His Divine grace and love.
With the magic of Christ’s upcoming birthday starting to shine over each of us, I begin to wonder who each of us would like to become as we walk into the New Year that awaits us.
New Year’s resolutions are usually made, the majority of us make them with the intention of becoming better people. I did a little research and found this very sweet backstory about a minister who made 70 New Year’s resolutions in order to become the perfect person.
His name was Jonathan Edwards, born in the 18th century, he was a Congregationalist theologian (Congregationalism is a Christian movement that arose in England in the late 16th and 17th century). He was born in 1703 as the fifth child, and only son, out of eleven children. Apparently he was a precocious boy who entered Yale at the age of 13, it was here he became an enthusiastic student of nature and science.
Like many of his contemporaries, he believed that a perfect person could exist. He wanted to become that person! To that end he wrote his 70 resolutions.
In 1720 he began his resolutions for his own conduct: To speak with truth; never to speak evil of others; to shun anger and revenge; to be temperate in eating and drinking; to be agreeable, peaceable, compassionate and charitable.
During the next few years Edwards added to his resolutions, focusing more on making resolutions about living. He resolved, “Never to lose one moment of time … to live with all my might, while I do live.” Similarly he resolved, “I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.” He also asked himself if the afflictions he experienced could perhaps be good. He concluded that after experiencing his afflictions it was best to inquire in what way he may have been better because of experiencing them.
Edwards, who frequently meditated on death as a way to understand life, lived to age 54.
Reading about his ideas reminded me so much of the term Christ Consciousness. This terminology can briefly be described as blending human ego with Christ’s Divine Mind and Divine Personality; to be more than what we are through Christ’s love and the example He set for us.
As things start closing off for 2022, I think what speaks to me most is not to reject our human weakness, but to love ourselves in spite of it the way Christ does, and to choose to do better. This sort of self-acceptance of our own “ugliness” should allow much more room for a greater level of understanding. If we have this element of darkness in us and we can still be deserving of love, then the people who cast their own darkness onto us deserve love too, for how can we pass judgement when we also sometimes live in our very own shadow? It is mirroring Christ’s teachings in a very genuine way.
Perhaps it is a point we should all ponder in our own hearts and minds.
It is always very important to offer our sincere thanks to all our fabulous customers for the support and continued patronage throughout the year. May the Christmas season be truly blessed and we hope to be gifted the honour of assisting each of our customers to reach even greater heights in 2023.
We would also like to thank all of our “family” here. Thank you for all the effort and dedication offered to us throughout the year of 2022. May we all grow together and have a wonderful 2023, accomplishing new goals as a team.
May God bless each and every one of us and keep us safe during this Christmas time. May we all return together on the 9th of January, when we re-open, for the next exciting chapter of our journey together.
Some important dates to remember:
We are closing early on Friday the 9th of December for our annual Christmas function. We are closing at 11:30am on this day.
We are open for business on Saturday the 10th of December from 8:00am until 1:00pm. We have a flash sale of up to 20% off for all walk-in customers on this day.
We are accepting final courier orders for 2022 on the 12th of December. We cannot guarantee that any courier orders received after this date will be sent out this year.
We close for annual shut down on the 15th of December 2022.
We re-open for business on the 9th of January 2023.