After being on mission trips or in the field for long periods of time, Christmas seems like the worst time of year to come back. Have you ever heard of ‘reverse culture shock’? It’s when people leave their natural culture, spend time in other culture, and then return to their home land unable to ‘fit back in’. Culture shock happens when you enter a place and have no idea what to expect: the way people live their lives, what they value, how they act are all foreign to you, something you have never experienced and haven’t leaned how to respond to. I have experience both culture shock (going) and reverse culture shock (coming). I am learning that the more you come and go, the more you understand how to cope with the differences in cultures and how to not be a critic and judge, when injustice seems to reign high.
This year was probably the best year I have had reintegrating into my culture here in America. I can remember most of the other times I have come home and not handled readjustment the way I should, but thanks to God, people showed me grace and love in spite of it all. Coming home this time and looking around at everything: decorations, how people spend money, how they spend their time, how they act towards one another, etc; instead of being angry like years past, my heart just broke. A time of the year when our focus should be on Christ and celebrating Him, who he is to us; is now a time focused on buying the most presents, spending 30+ hours at the shopping mall, decorating the house with Santa’s and Nutcracker’s, running around, being stressed out…loosing the joy of the holiday. America seems to be one of the luckiest nations in the world, a history marked by favor from God, something we so easily take for granted and now that He has blessed us to be where we are, we toss God to the side because we no longer need him. How can a people group so easily turn from the one that has brought them to where they are?? Well history shows us that it is pretty easy, seeing as how the Israelites constantly turned from God even after he parted the red sea, gave them food from heaven, walked with them day and night, delivered them from their enemies, and performed miracle after miracle right before their very eyes. With the fall of man, we are destined to walk away from our Creator, but in those moments Christ reaches out to us and brings us back to him, giving us his Spirit to draw nearer to God, we as Christians have a new obligation. It is not up to the world to bring Christ into Christmas, for them it is just a pagan holiday where a jolly man brings presents to boys an girls who already have rooms full of them. We can’t be mad at “America” for allowing Christ to be forgotten, we can only hold ourselves responsible for letting it come this far. As the church, we are the body of Christ, it is up to us to stand against our culture, to proclaim the gospel in the darkest places, to not allow ourselves to be tainted by the world around us, to not forget the reason Jesus Christ was born…he was born to save US! And that is what we should be celebrating every Christmas season.
As you take time to reflect on the year 2011, ask yourself if you are doing all that you could possibly do to make Christmas all about our Savior and not the commercialized meaning of the holiday. For each person and each family it will look different, but what should be the same is our desire to glorify God throughout the whole holiday season, to turn people’s eyes up toward heaven…
This Christmas I was able to spend the whole weekend with my family and my extended family. It was such a blessing and joy to work with my mom to serve everyone dinner, to play games late into the evening, to sit around catching up, to share stories of how Christ has been moving in our lives, and to just rest in the assurance that Jesus Christ lives and he loves us so much!!!
I hope each and everyone of you enjoyed Christmas with those you love most and are excited about what the new year will bring…HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!
