Holiday Letdown

I love Christmas. As soon as the Peppermint Mocha CoffeeMate Creamer hits the shelves, I begin playing Christmas music, pull out the tree, the lights and my dinky house gets ready. I begin making Christmas present lists for the kids, dig up Christmasy recipes and buy all the canned pumpkin my pantry will hold. The inside of my house gets decorated with those twinkling little lights and when all the regular lights are off and just the glow of the tiny lights shine, my house feels cozy and happy.

Then Christmas comes. We visit family, we make the rounds and then it's over.

That's it. Done. Finished. Have to wait another 364 days until it happens again.

Enter Holiday Letdown.

Christmas usually doesn't pack the punch I always vision it will pack. Nine Christmases out of ten, I get Holiday letdown. I build it up into this grandiose holiday with family, friends, lots of food and then it's over and I get sad.

I experienced a letdown of another kind the other day.

On Monday, I gave my testimony to my MOPS group.

I planned to talk about the part of my life beginning with my diagnosis. August of 2009 until now has the most umph, it contains the best part; the vividness of God is so bright during this part that I wanted to share. Don't get me wrong, my whole life contains God's light in my life, but now I see it the best. My eyes & heart are clearer, if you will.

It's my turn to speak. I grab my notes, my phone, a pen, pick my stomach off the floor and walk up to the front. I wasn't nervous, until I stood up and then I felt as if I wanted to vomit and bawl all at the same time. I. Was. So. Nervous.

I open my mouth and I can't really tell you what came out because I didn't use my notes!

Then my turn is over. I sit down, a friend hands me C3, I walk to the bathroom, open a stall, enter, put the lid down, tell God thanks for toilet lids, and proceed to bawl my eyes out.

Why? I can only chalk it up to hormones and nerves. When I get really nervous about something, then it's over, I always cry. It happened after my first gyno visit. I bawled for hours after that horrifying event.

I exit the bathroom looking like I smoked something while in the stall, sit down and try to hold it together when anyone says, "You did good."

I felt as if I had made absolutely no sense and I let God down and the people that asked me to speak.

As I'm writing this, it's a few days later, and I still feel like I could have done better. Even though the skies were dark and the rain was falling, my prayer is that my heart was bright and the God I love and serve shined through and that no one had Holiday/ Testimony Letdown.