One of the most well-known Christmas stories is the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Scrooge is a Christmas-hating miser who is visited by three ghosts the night before Christmas to get him to change his ways. The first ghost to visit Mr. Scrooge is “The Ghost of Christmas Past”. This ghost takes Ebenezer back in time and shows him scenes from his past that turned him into the “Scrooge” he had become.

 

Like Ebenezer Scrooge, there are many of us who are haunted by the ghosts of our PAST. Unlike Ebenezer Scrooge, however, many of us don’t just visit our PAST…we have decided to live there. THE PAST IS THE WORST PLACE YOU COULD EVER LIVE! Some of you have gotten so comfortable there, you’re receiving mail. The past is nothing but a bad neighborhood, and to make matters worse, the rent is way too high. It’s expensive to live in the past! It’s dangerous to live there too. When you live in the past, you pay the price by losing out on opportunities in your present and endangering the dreams of your future.

 

This Christmas season is a great time to move past the Ghost of Christmas Past. Remember that your past is not your past if you refuse to get past it. The best way to get past your past is to open up the gift of hope. Hope is oftentimes all we have. Our money may come up short, relationships may go astray, and things that we depended upon are no longer dependable. But hope is always there. Hope does not dwell on the past; it looks forward to the future. That’s why I don’t look back to the past for too long. I’m not focused on yesterday because I have so much to do today. When you hold on to hope, you can let go of the past. Hope is the ultimate “ghost buster”. It delivers you from the haunting of the ghosts of your past.

 

While your past is a GHOST…hope is a GIFT. Hope is the greatest gift you can find under the Christmas tree this year. (I know some of you ladies out there are saying, “Diamonds are good with me”, and the fellas are saying, “You don’t have to get me nothing, just help me take care of a few of these bills!”) Nevertheless, it’s time to stop being haunted by your past and start un-wrapping some hope! HOPE DOESN’T IGNORE YOUR PAST…IT JUST DOESN’T DWELL ON IT! Hope is what keeps you reaching forward instead of falling backwards. Hope is the gift that keeps on LIVING. More accurately, hope is the gift that keeps YOU living. (I KNOW that will bless you and others. You need to tweet that right now…I’ll wait!)

 

As long as you feed and nourish hope, hope will stay alive, and that same hope will keep YOU alive. I’ve dealt with the ignorance of my divorce for two years, but I never gave up hope. I’m dealing with the ignorance of a so-called friend and co-founder that tried to steal my dream of Prime Prep Academy and make it his reality, but I’ve never lost hope. I don’t use alarm clocks…hope is what gets me up every morning. (And Prime is always on time. Ask anybody who knows me.)

 

Give yourself the gift of hope this Christmas and stop being haunted by the ghosts of your past. As we prepare to go into the New YOU, I mean, New Year, make up your mind to leave the PAST in the PAST. You can LEARN from the past, but you cannot LIVE in the past. It’s time to stop renting in your past and start buying in to your future. All you need for your down payment…is a little bit of hope. (Wherever you are right now, just shout, “HOPE!”)

 

Ebenezer Scrooge finally got over the ghost of his past, and he was never haunted again. After being visited by The Ghost of Christmas Past, he saw the Ghosts of Christmas Present and Future. When we END our past, we can ENJOY our present and EMBRACE our future. This is what Christmas is all about. Christ’s birth gives us the hope we need push past our past and fast forward to our future. That is the greatest gift of all! Please believe me.

 

TRUTH!