(This photo is terrific used as desktop wallpaper)

Christmas day is a week away. If you are like me, most of your shopping is complete, but perhaps you also suffer from the disease that takes hold of me at this time of year, “The Second-Guessing of Gift Choices,” disease.

“Will so-and-so like this color? Will this gift seem too thoughtless? Should I have given a ‘real’ gift instead of a gift card?”

I’m sorry to say that sometimes I give into the agonizing thoughts and run out to buy “Just One More Perfect Thing!”

This is the time of year when it is hard to maintain a gracious demeanor and mindset: terrible traffic, lack of parking spaces, rude and pushy shoppers, endless spending, too many cookies to bake, too many cookies begging you to eat them. (Did you know home-baked cookies are delicious even when eaten right out of the freezer?) This year, I’m going to audibly remind myself to be gracious and repeat the word ‘Grace’ until I can maintain it in the midst of stressful situations, even if I have to growl a little bit first: “Grrrrrrace! I think I can…I think I can…I think I can!

Here are a few wise words from Charles Spurgeon on grace towards other Christians, but we can easily substitute grace toward all mankind.

““We shall, as we ripen in grace, have greater sweetness towards our fellow Christians. Bitter-spirited Christians may know a great deal, but they are immature. Those who are quick to censure may be very acute in judgment, but they are as yet very immature in heart.

He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not expect his fellow Christians to be anything more. He overlooks ten thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find it.

~ C.H. Spurgeon