On the Search for Significance

TOTAL READ TIME: 3.5 Minutes

Where did this year go? Here we are, tinseling trees and excess shopping. We are on automatic, swirling in a stew of obligation and expectation.

I’ve gotten lost, somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everywhere I look, there’s signs telling me what I should do and feel. It’s time to decorate, light, give, plan, wrap, cook, bake and celebrate. If it’s all meant for something, then why am I on auto-pilot?

It’s okay that we are busy, you and I. That is inevitable. The time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is a wind tunnel; we can accept or ignore it, but we’re in it. There’s only one way to slow it down:  find meaning.

While I was growing up, my parents found their meaning then wrapped it into intense action. They lit up our rural farmstead with hundreds of thousands of lights and Christmas displays. Their meaning was to share the light and message of Jesus, who lit up their hearts. After the fall harvest, my parents would spend weeks in the workshop, designing and building displays that matched their meaning.

Every December, we had hundreds of cars from the tri-county area slowly drive through our farm with headlights off, to wonder at these oversized, hand-designed, custom-built displays. Besides, you can’t find these at your local Home Depot store. For example, the full side of the barn was lit up with not one, but three murals with messages such as “JOY” or “PEACE ON EARTH” and images that supported it.

The craziest idea my parents had was when they decided to move an entire row of large round hay bales to the edge of our driveway. Imagine 16 five-foot tall hay bales double-stacked, each with a round piece of plywood attached with one oversized letter each, to eventually spell: MERRY CHRISTMAS. You could see it from miles away in the flat, treeless prairies.

The point of this story: find your meaning. Run for it. Search for significance. I don’t care what it is. Don’t decorate on auto-pilot: find your meaning. Don’t buy gifts on auto-pilot: find your meaning. Don’t bake cookies on auto-pilot: find your meaning.

Yesterday, my entire family went out on an expedition and we came home with a cart-full of decorations and a second Christmas tree. What is my meaning, you ask? To light up what is in my heart. To light up this world. There is darkness around us; literally and figuratively, as we draw close to the shortest and darkest day of the year. No matter how dark the world may appear, the choice is ours. Our light can shine no matter what is around us. I can choose how I show up, regardless of the shade around me. That is my meaning. My words are imperfect, but the meaning is there.

The next time I see you, I’ll see you in your pilot seat. I’ll see that you’ve switched your mode of operation. I’ll see that we both have slowed down, which is what happens when we are steeped in significance.