Not for You

Celebrating Christ without missing His heart

Beloved Friend,

My last birthday in uni arrived quietly.

I had planned to stay indoors, do nothing serious, just breathe. Birthday blues were already doing their thing when a friend invited me to a Bible study near the chapel. I decided to go.

Unknown to me, my younger brother had been cooking up a surprise. He kept hinting that he had planned something that would shock me. He meant it in a good way. I just did not know how literal that statement would turn out to be.

While I was out, his friends took over the apartment.

I returned in the evening and froze.

Most of them had just left. One person was outside puking from too much alcohol. The apartment was dirty. Not slightly messy. Dirty dirty. The floor was sticky. The air was off. I could feel a storm building inside me.

My brother tried to explain. They were waiting to surprise me. Everything had been going well until one person drank too much. If I had come earlier, I would have seen how nice it was. Since I did not show up, they celebrated on my behalf. They even cooked jollof rice.

I opened the pot.

Only the bottom remained. A few grains stuck to the burnt part.

That was it.

I was livid. I was meant to go to camp the next day. The apartment was not a place I could sleep in, talk less of cleaning at that hour. I went to my friends. They listened and knew immediately that I could not go back there that night. I slept over.

The next morning, I picked my bags and left for camp, after warning my brother to clean up before I returned.

Later, I realised something.

My brother genuinely felt he had put in so much effort and that I did not even appreciate him.

I genuinely felt that if he really knew me, he would have known that nothing about that celebration would appeal to me. I love quiet. I love cleanliness. I love peace.

From my angle, it felt like my birthday had been used as an excuse for something else.

From his angle, it felt like love that went unseen.

That story stayed with me.

We are in the Christmas season.

A season of celebration. Songs. Noise. Plans. A lot of activity.

It made me pause.

What if we are celebrating in ways that are not pleasing to the celebrant?

What if our noise drowns out His heart?

What if our traditions replace remembrance?

What if we are busy doing things for Him without asking what honors Him?

Christ did not come to give us a holiday.

He came to give us Himself.

Christmas is not about excess. It is about incarnation.

God stepping into flesh.

Sacrifice before celebration.

A cross before a crown.

This season is an invitation to slow down and ask an honest question.

Is the way I am celebrating aligned with the One I claim to honour?

It is possible to mean well and still miss the point.

It is possible to make effort and still miss the heart.

May our celebrations be pleasing to Him.

May our remembrance be rooted in gratitude.

May Christ not be an afterthought in a season that bears His name.

Merry Christmas in advance, my friend.

With thoughts of kindness,

ABBA’s Shofar