Christmas blues

After my fourth post about how much I love and can't get enough of Christmas, I got sick of Christmas. It's true. I was overwhelmed with the "present-giving", impatient with family and just kind of sad for a couple of days. It was a bad case of the Christmas blues. :( I turned a little into this guy:

Yesterday I felt a little better. I reread a book I got this summer. The great person that gave it to me said it was a book to read and reread over and over again. I must admit I think he is right. I listed the book on the "About Martha and Mary" page on this blog. Here are some of the things I read this time that really spoke to me:
 
"The first goal of spiritual combat, that toward which our efforts must above all be directed, is not always obtain a victory (over our temptations, our weaknesses, etc.), rather it is to learn to maintain peace of heart under all circumstances, even in the case of defeat."

"Saint John the Cross expresses this same truth in other terms: 'All things were given to me from the moment when I no longer sought them.'"

"God asks for an attitude of detachment at the level of the heart, a disposition to give Him everything, but He doesn't necessarily 'take' everything."

"A desire that causes us to lose peace, even if the thing desired is excellent in itself, is not of God. It is necessary to want and desire, but in a free and detached way, in abandoning to God the realization of these desires, as He desires and when He wishes."

What really helped today was watching a movie that totally answered a lot of questions and problems I've been dealing with recently. I mean, it was so loud and clear it was almost as if someone had made that movie specifically for my life right now. Fools Rush In, with Salma Hayek.

It gave me a new outlook on what's important. My favorite part was when she visits her great-grandmother in Mexico, who she has a special connection with, and that great-grandmother tells her she hasn't been acting out of love but out of fear. She said, "If you really want to know love, you have to surrender to it." Love it. It's my 2011 new year's resolution.

SURRENDER