Live Like Heaven Rules

Life is crazy. Yes indeed, it is crazy. It is that time of year…

When every toy catalog that comes in the mail creates a tantrum.

When I can’t remember where I put the gifts I bought months ago and hid somewhere. I’m a good hider.

When I unpack the holiday decorations and shake my head at the vast amount of ornaments and trinkets I’ve accumulated over the years.

When I forget which night Rudolph is on and which channel.

When I try and cram a year’s worth of digital scrapbooking into 2 days so I can get the photobooks done for grandparents.

When I buy eggnog and don’t drink it. It’s the holidays. One must have eggnog in the fridge.

When I bake too much and eat too much.

When I watch my parents and sister head off to Florida without me, realizing I forgot to send them with their presents.

When I procrastinate about everything. And I mean everything.

Life for me is like that most of the year, not just at Christmas. How about you? If you are a digi scrapper, are you ready with those custom cards and photobooks? If you are a photographer, are you looking at External Hard Drives full of photographs from last year that haven’t been processed yet? Crazy is an applicable word for Christmas. But I’m trying to see the positive in it because hey, I’m crazy just about 365 days a year. Project 365 for many involves daily photographs, daily layouts or blog posts. For me Project 365 is Project Crazy Cyndi.

I’d rather be crazy and have fun while procastinating, eating too much, baking too much, searching for presents and scrapbooking through the night. Crazy is more fun than some other things I could be this time of year. I could be sad. A sad baker, scrapbooker or holiday decorator wouldn’t be cool. I could be mad. A mad mother in the kitchen, decking the halls or shopping at the mall is a recipe for disaster. I could be indifferent. I could be apathetic. I could be bitter. I could be a Scrooge. I could be a lot of things that I’m not at Christmas or any time of the year. I’ll take crazy any day over those things.

Now that Advent is underway and we’ve got our Advent wreath out (even though Henry keeps thinking the purple candles are candy and wants to eat them), I’ve been reflecting daily about the craziness of my life, the world around me and the world within me. World within me? Yeah, that’s a new one for me, too. The world within me is that which keeps driving me towards seeing the positive in my crazy life, that keeps me believing that things are going to get better even when I truly feel like my world is falling apart. Do you know that feeling? What is the world within you say about you? Have you thought about it?

My boys brought home a little booklet on Advent from preschool just before Thanksgiving. It was just a little booklet but what a good read! It is called “Messengers for the Messiah.” Each night we read a little story and a scripture and do a craft. This morning I was reflecting on the messenger theme we’re following this Advent and I realized that I have many messengers in my life that help make the world within me a good place. Yes, it may be crazy sometimes, but it is a good place. And these messengers–my boys, my family, friends I see every day, church members, friends I’ve met online but not in person and even strangers–are all helping me to be “Crazy Cyndi” 365 days a year. These are all my messengers. Who are your messengers? Who is helping you find the world within you? Who is helping you find your way around the world within you?

I have a new motto for Project Crazy Cyndi. “Live Like Heaven Rules.” If I’m going to succeed at making the world within and around me a better place, I must “Live Like Heaven Rules.” In church on Sunday our pastor preached about this theme. He convinced me that if I can believe and embrace the truth that heaven rules, what happens in the world within me and the world around me will not shake me. It will motivate me. It will keep the sadness, bitterness, indifference, and the anger where it belongs–outside the world within me. So this holiday season I’m starting to “Live Like Heaven Rules.” How about you?

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” 1 John 4:4