You may be familiar with The Ghost of Christmas Past from the Charles Dickens novella, “A Christmas Carol,” one of the three ghosts that haunt a man during Christmas.

In the same way we may have “ghosts” that haunt us. Maybe it is every Christmas when memories start to flood back and we start to dread the holiday, and once again, we’re “haunted.”

These hauntings are basically of two types: regrets and unforgiveness.  Maybe it is regret about something we did:  maybe a small mistake, or we wronged or slighted someone in a small way, or maybe something more serious, an affair or something even worse.  Maybe the ghost that haunts you is unforgiveness.  Maybe you were the one who was slighted or wronged, maybe your spouse had the affair or something even worse was done to you.

We might be lucky and the ghost haunts us only once a year.  We dread Christmas but we get through it and the ghost leaves us for another year.  But, what if these ghosts are your daily companions, a daily haunting of regrets of what you have done or unforgiveness because of what was done to you?  It may be that the ghost haunting us truly becomes our companion, a familiar spirit that is with us day and night to haunt and torment us. 

 Of course, there are those natural feelings of sorrow, not hauntings really but just that sorrow when we remember loved ones we have lost. Having lost my wife to cancer and widowed after twenty years of marriage, I very much understand the pain and sorrow that comes up around the holidays, but we can mourn in a different way; we can mourn and miss our loved ones, but we also have hope.

I can also understand and identify with regrets.  I was an alcoholic and involved heavily with drugs from the ages of 15 to 30, so I know too well the regrets of saying things and doing things that hurt people.  During the years I was an alcoholic, my girlfriend and I were drinking a liter of liquor a night.  I was at an all-time low when quite suddenly, and miraculously, Jesus Christ delivered me.  Instantaneously, I went from being an alcoholic to being free from the addictions, and free from the soul-burdening wrongs that had condemned me. That is just one story that shows the power of God to deliver any of us, not only from drugs and alcohol but even from all of the ghosts that haunt us.

When Jesus came He said He wanted to give us a full life . This is life that is free from all those bondages and addictions.  Jesus not only delivers us from addictions but He gives us peace and purpose.  All the fears and torments that this world can haunt us with no longer have the power they once had.

We can replace the hauntings of ghosts with the peaceful companionship of Christ: I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart.  And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid –– John 14:27.

Let this holiday be the holiday that you are set free from your hauntings.