Gifts We Give Ourselves

It's Christmas time and I know other years I have received messages from the Angels and Guides relating to things that I experience or feel this time of year. This year it has been rather quiet. Of course I could write about how the whole story of Christmas can relate to our own personal life experience. How the birth of the Christ child can symbolize the birth of something new in our lives. I have actually had two dreams in the past week about pregnancy and I told the person I dreamed them about that it doesn't necessarily mean that she is going to have another child. It could mean the birth of a new time in her life (or mine, since I am the one who had the dream, even though it was not me who was pregnant), or it could be a warning dream, to make sure if she does not want another child she needs to use some preventive measures, or it could mean that at this time of year we are all collectively thinking about the birth of a Savior, one who for centuries we have hoped would save us from our sins. Now that I look at the story objectively, as one who is kind of looking at the story from a distance, instead of one locked into a certain belief system, I realize that the whole story is the story of hope. A culture who was in a way enslaved by the Roman government was hoping for a way out, but when Jesus grew up and began preaching, he repeatedly said that salvation came from the inside out, and that he was not here to overthrow any governments, but only to show us that no one could enslave us as long as we were free in our hearts.

So how does this relate to our story today? There are those who claim that the government is responsible for all our ills, just as they did when Jesus was born. However, if we are to believe the message, we are all free or enslaved only by ourselves, by our loving hearts or our bitter hearts, respectively. By forgiving ourselves and those who we perceive to be at fault for our predicaments, we free ourselves from the slavery of blame and guilt. Just as the wise men and the shepherds came to give gifts to the Christ child, in the same way, if the Christ Consciousness resides in our hearts, we can give gifts to the Christ child by loving ourselves. This is the gift we give ourselves.