If there was ever a year when my neighborhood and town needed a white Christmas, this was the year. I prayed along those lines for several days, in fact. On Christmas Eve Steve and I tucked excited, slightly hyper children into bed, did a little "elving" around the house, then headed to bed ourselves--not a flake in sight.
But we woke to beauty--a coating of snow just big enough to cover the ground and make everything look magical. And we need a little magic around here. After opening their stockings and eating traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast, our three bundled up (they can bundle themselves up now--moms of littles, take heart! Your day will come.) and spent an hour sledding in the backyard.
Jonathan said the snow was one of his favorite presents.
We had a perfect Christmas day--slow, joyful, exciting, beautiful. I'm finding that even in the midst of sorrow all around, I must acknowledge the beauty. I can't help it--it's everywhere. It feels good to remember that.
There is trouble, yes, deep darkness around me--and around you in some way I'd wager, too. But when we allow ourselves to get stuck in the darkness we help no one.
We must move past the shadows and worries to discover how we can help, how we can grow, how we can serve, how we can love.
This day, these children, this snow, this home, this community--all beautiful gifts. I receive them with awe and wonder, and thank the Giver.
“I've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they
saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking
at the Baptist window: pretty as coloured glass with the sun pouring
through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling.
But I'll wager it never happens.
I'll wager at the very
end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as
they are' - her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites
and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone - 'just what they've
always seen, was seeing Him.
As for me, I could leave the world with
today in my eyes.”
~ Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory
