"I'm so Happy" or not?

Have you seen the YouTube of the little guy who is opening his gifts on Christmas?

He opens a gift and it is a video game, he asks his parents about another (obviously more desired game.) Then he opens the gift he wanted and he starts balling and saying, “I’m so happy!”

How did your children respond this Christmas?  It is a joyous thing when our children are “so happy.”  However, it wasn’t the case with one of ours this Christmas.  Both my husband and I remember a Christmas and birthdays were we were disappointed. Yes, it is certainly the “American Way.”

You ask for certain things, expect certain things, and then it’s the big let down.  Our youngest was looking for an IPhone.  I had told her throughout the season she would not be getting one. On Christmas morning, her friends photographed on Instagram (yeah, social media) their gifts.  It’s true, they photographed in “loot piles” all they had gotten, and many of them put the shinning crown of an IPhone, right in the center.

Image found at Pinterest

It’s hard to imagine her waffle iron and jazz shoes didn’t take the center spot of her “loot picture.” But to my daughter’s chagrin they didn’t!  

Such hard lessons we have to learn (and teach.)  Both Greg and I reminisced privately of disappointing holidays, when our expectations weren’t met.  It’s a shamefully embarrassing truth.

As my husband opened the last gift, her absence in the room was keenly felt.  She had quietly left the room and I found her on her bed.  As she cried her emotions out, she was disappointed.  The disappointment had different facets.  First, she was saddened she didn’t get what she really wanted. It was salt to her wound that all her other friends had gotten IPhones.  She was saddened at her self.  Saddened she was disappointed and saddened that she even felt disappointed.

          It’s one thing to be disappointed, its quite another to realize you should be grateful for what you have received.  Although, I understood her disappointment with what she didn’t receive, I was so proud of her for recognizing on her own, that she should be grateful for what she had gotten.  

I am sorry she didn’t get what she wanted, but I am ever so grateful to watch her grow in His Spirit, and recognize her need to submit to Him. I’m praying she will remember it is natural to feel disappointment, but God’s Spirit will give her satisfaction and contentment.

Philippians 4: 12 – 13, “…I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”