What if your kid doesn’t get that award on presentation day? What if after all the hype, effort and anticipation they miss out on being prefect? Will you post a photo of them in tears, proud that they are dealing with grief and learning how disappointing life can be?
Ok I’m being cynical. But is anyone else a little affronted by the onslaught of parents updating their social media status with glowing praise and big smiley photos of their kids and their awards from this season’s presentation day ceremonies? I know, ‘it’s how we keep in touch these days’, right? ‘Get over it Stephen!’.
Who are we talking to when we post, next to a big smiley photo of our child on that day: ‘well done Bryony, you are such a champion winning prefect this year! LOL’ ? After all isn’t Bryony, like 10? So she doesn’t have a facebook account (or shouldn’t!). Which means the message is not for Bryony but for us. What parents do here is recreate the award ceremony for the online world that missed the original. Bryony is standing there with the medal and our applause is expected. Waiting. Waiting. Like. Like. Like.Like. What only 4 likes!?
Joy to the Aussie world?
Sometimes people deserve our praise. Now it is very Australian to not share someone else’s joy. So we need to avoid that awful trait. It is also very unAustralian to brag but is that a good thing? We Aussies always tend to play down our successes, so why shouldn’t we shout out our kid’s successes for goodness sake? ‘C’mon Stephen get over it…snap that photo, update the facebook page, join in the bragging by proxy!’.
Sometimes we need our close friends and family to share our joy; it’s part of being human and joined together in life isn’t it? Like the joy shared by the lady in Jesus’ parable who finds her lost coin…’come and share my joy with me because what was lost is found’.
Who will you share joy with, this Christmas? What joy will you share?
Christmas is a season for reminding us of the one who deserves to be bragged about. The birth of Jesus filled the night sky outside Bethlehem with praise from a million angels. They praised His birth because He was “God with us”. Despite Bethlehem’s disinterest in a heavily pregnant woman and her husband, the heavens didn’t stay silent. BOOM. They got it right.
[caption id="attachment_483" align="aligncenter" width="1778" caption="Shepherds terrified by angels (Shepherd and King Sticker Story www.antonsantics.com))"]
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What do you brag about?
Sometimes news of someone in our family deserves to be shared. Jesus was God’s son, but at Christmas he became a man and in doing so joined our family. A bunch of smelly shepherds were the first to hear the news and they went and saw the child for themselves. Afterward they couldn’t help themselves but began bragging to anyone who’d listen about this special child (Luke 2:17-18). Bragging can be cool, especially when the news is for the ‘peace and goodwill of all’.
What are we bragging about this Christmas season?
When we consider the Christmas account of Mary hearing all the wonderful things about her son, her first reaction wasn’t to post it on Facebook. What did she do? She treasured all these things said about her son in her heart (Luke 2 19). She found her ‘fill’, her satisfaction, in her own heart.
Mary knew how to be happy.
What would we have done if we were in her shoes?
Could we have held ourselves back from a status update?
She may have liked others to have been there celebrating her first son’s birth, but it wasn’t to be. No-one made room for her in Joseph’s very own, home town. Hmm. So perhaps she felt no-one was really there to share her joy anyway. Today, maybe that’s you. Maybe there’s no-one who’s going to ‘like’ your status update, or celebrate your child’s win anyway. Maybe they’ll give you ‘like’ for ‘like’ so off you go clicking anyway. Maybe your child didn’t win or get prefect and so you’ve nothing to update or share?
So what! Look to Mary and share in her joy; the joy of having all you need right in front of you.
Take a closer look at the focus of her joy and you may even share in the hope her boy brings.
Christmas sticker story activity booklets are available from www.antonsantics.com/shop
