“ Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days, that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home! "
In 1836 Charles Dickens published The Pipwick Papers. The previous excerpt is from chapter 28 titled Good Humored Christmas. What Dickens refers to as “delusions of childish days…. and pleasures of youth…” is actually a reflection of grace.
As a child Charles Dickens was no stranger to heartache and disappointment. His father John failed at many attempts as an entrepreneur landing himself along with the family in the Marshalsea debtor’s prison when Charles was only twelve. However, he and his older sister Fanny were not taken with the family to Marshalsea. Fanny was away at school and young Charles was working in a shoe polish factory. He returned home each night alone for the duration of his father’s incarceration.
Often in his works you will find an abandoned child such as Oliver Twist or an unfortunate boy like Tiny Tim as Dickens opens a window of his heart and shows the world a picture from his past. In fact he will addresses the ghost of Christmas past in A Christmas Carol introducing the world to Scrooge and the folly of finding security in material things.
Considering his less than fortunate up bringing how can he write of Christmas being filled with good memories of childish days and pleasures of youth? It is because grace has redeemed his memory and brought personal freedom. Unlike Scrooge Dickens refused to be haunted by the ghost of Christmas past.
How are you this Christmas? Are you haunted by something in the past that robs you of the joy this season represents? Christmas grace showed up for Charles Dickens and it is available for you.
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