Is Christmas Broken? Are We?

This post is written for all the people who just can't feel Christmas this year.  For the ones who are saying things like, "I just can't get into the Spirit this year"  Or the person who is doing their very, very best to keep Christmas for the first time without a special loved one there.  For everyone thinking if only                I would be more excited about Christmas.  It is written for me, a reminder to myself that Christmas was never in the snow, the lights, the decorated tree, the gifts, etc.... and if you are one with limited funds to spend on Christmas this year and it is always tugging on your generous heart.... trust me when I tell you, "you are the gift your love ones want most.  You with your engaging smile, and welcoming spirit.  You with your infectious laughter and warmest of hugs."  Long after the taste of the cookies is gone from your little one's mouth, the memory of making them with you will remain.  

This Christmas may be raw for you.  It may be more painful than joyous. I know there is so much brokenness in our home this year.  While I look with anticipation at getting our tree and decorating it, I am also dreading it, too.   This year when we pull out the stockings with everyone's personal ornaments tucked in....two of my boys will not be here to put their ornaments on the tree.  (The story behind that will be in another post when the time is right.)  I will be giving one boy his ornaments to place on a different tree this year or keep for his own first tree.  The other little boy, may get to place his ornaments on our tree, but not as part of our family, and at this point he will not be able to be here with us Christmas morning to enjoy the stockings, the gifts under the tree, the feasting.... His Christmas and ours will be very different this year. 

A fallen, broken world does not make a broken Christmas.   Our souls ache from wounds that cannot be shared and felt by anyone else.  Wounded people hurt other people....until their wounds are fully healed!!

That is where we need Christmas most.  Right in the middle of our wounds, the healing miracle of a savior, and God's amazing gift!!  I am fairly certain that first Christmas did not look anything like Mary or Joseph imagined when the angel announced to them the great gift God was giving them.  I have no idea what they were expecting, but if I was told I was giving birth to a king, to the King of Kings!  I would dream of promotion and a palace with many midwives, and hand maids attending to me.  I would never dream of a barn stall surrounded by animals, and the first visitors to see me after my body was ripped and torn...a group of smelly men, shepherds.  No, no, no...that is not the birth I would have dreamed.  And yet, that is exactly the way the greatest gift the world has ever been given came into the world.  

Maybe your Christmas doesn't match your dreams this year.  Maybe your heart is torn and aching, as Mary's body was ripped and aching.  Maybe the people around you, who should be caring for you, are not doing things the way you picture them doing them.  Maybe instead of handmaids bringing oils and perfumes, you are surrounded by smelly diapers, and dirty dishes, and late nights and no one to help you.  I don't know your hurts, but I know that Christmas is not broken.  God did not get it wrong on that first messy, dirty, dark Christmas and He will come right into the middle of your messy, dirty, dark Christmas and be the light your soul needs.  

When all the pretty lights just hide all the hurting places, I pray you will let the light of Jesus into your heart and soul and know Christmas.  

Here are a couple quotes that have  ministered to my soul this Christmas:

           "Worry is always belief gone wrong.  Because you don't believe that God will get it right." 

           "Some days, when you feel brave, it's almost like you can reach through the pieces where your heart feels torn and touch the gentle peace of God." 

from  Ann Voskamp's Unwrapping the Greatest Gift There are so many more....every night I grow in wonder at how amazing the Gift of Christmas, Jesus, is to the world. 

Dear One, in that hard place,  Christmas is not broken, you are not broken.  Christmas can be both messy, hard, dark, dirty, and beautiful, amazing, light filled, and glorious!!  Because the same Savior who came into the dirty, dark, smelly manger will come into your messy, imperfect, not pinterest worthy life, and His very presence will sooth the torn and aching places in your heart.  Please, let Him in to heal the wounded places, let Him comfort the aches, and let Him be your constant companion, who will never leave you or forsake you.  

We don't have our tree up yet (gasp) and very little of my house is decorated!!  I know!!  So I think I'm behind.  Then I remember we don't get our tree until around the 15th of the month that gives us 17 days or so to really enjoy it, and then we are done.  I remember I like to decorate a little each day and have my children "find" the decorations when they come home from school.  My Christmas doesn't look like other people's and that's wonderful!!  We all come in my shapes and sizes, so do our Christmas trees and so does our Christmas. I pray your Christmas includes Jesus, because if it doesn't it will always be missing the most amazing peace.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  

We wouldn't know the difference

Recently, (and in this blog that could be anything from this morning to last year :-)) I had one of those really special rare moments along the journey of motherhood:

I was enjoying a sweet Sunday afternoon nap, (don't judge, it's self care 101).  My sweet four year old came to "snuggle" with me.  Her version of snuggling and mine are very different.  Soon she was making silly noises and talking loudly.  I placed my hand over her mouth and she made one of those obnoxious sounds that can only be made by blowing, vibrations on a hand or from your backside.  Yep, in our house we call it "fart" noises :-) Which were followed by belly giggles and more of the same sounds, and repeat, for way longer than I would typically continue this silly behavior.  You know like when a little dog wants to play fetch the little rubber ball, long after the fun is gone for the person throwing the ball.  I laughed right out loud with her.  I don't laugh often enough and this wasn't lost on her.  She looked at me and said, "why are you laughing?" I said something like, "because you are silly and I like laughing with you." We laughed and giggled some more.  I looked deep into her little pixie face and her bright blue eyes, which meant being very close to that face, because I wasn't wearing my glasses.  This beautiful gift of a child.  This sassy, crazy, wild, child.  You see we didn't have to say yes.  She came to us a different way.

She reminds me of a song I heard many years ago at a woman's retreat, a song I have never heard again.  There was a line in the song talking about God's creation, "He could have made everything black and white and we would never known the difference."  Just as that song was being sung the sun set on the lake in one of those glorious sunsets with colors from deep violet, to mango, and pink blush.  The blue water of the lake only emphasized the beauty, every woman in the room was staring at the sunset, as that song ended.

<img src="http://www.freeimageslive.com/galleries/nature/sky/pics/skyclounds02531.jpg">

Here's the thing this little girl and most of my children were a choice we made.  But especially her.  We were fostering two of her siblings at the time, her birth mom became pregnant for her.  At first we were thinking of saying "no" to bringing home an infant when we were 47.  But we were told the other two children would need to go wherever the infant was placed.  We talked, we prayed, and we said, "yes."  In those moments when she is close to me and the belly giggles are abundant I look into that little face, and think "wow, I could have missed all this."  Truth is I wouldn't have missed her like you do a child you have loved and lost.  I would have gone on my way nearly every single day not knowing what I was missing, because ... well, you don't miss what you never had.  How precious that  God gave us color just for our pleasure, how precious this child and all of my children color my world, and their hand prints are all over my heart.  <3

This same feeling washes over me when I look up and see all seven of the children still at home stretched out on furniture and floor watching  an episode of "Andy Griffith" or a family movie.  I am filled with awe and gratefulness when our 16 year old sits next to me in the car and has to tuck his knees to fit into the seat, or he bends from his six foot plus height to hug me good night.  I am abundantly blessed.

Because this blog is all about the journey, I should also include a little more about the week before the cuddles and giggles with my four year old. This blog isn't called Chasing Wounded Hearts for nothing, it's our journey!! All these things happened in one week, yep seven days, seven kiddos, and a mom and dad who love them and each other,  so in no particular order:

• Child off meds for three days
• one child to ER for head injury - glued together
• one child lost computer privileges at school for generating a document that could be called cyber bullying (he was naive and did not make most of the comments on the document, but)
• homeschool ups and downs with one child
• I had to re-certify part of our health insurance
• Back door pulled off hinges
• dishwasher broke - won't drain
• my hormones are making me CRAZY!! menopause stinks
• Strong willed four year old - is there any other kind?
• telling three brothers their mom is trying to get custody of their 1/2 brother, the one they are in contact with and see at least every month
• telling son his birth dad was recently in the hospital
• baseball, t-ball and track practices
• missing shoes and permission slips 
• my own health issues

And some good things too:

• Countless hugs & snuggles
• laundry successes (see previous post)
• laughter
• coffee & conversations with my hubby
• belly laughs and what we could have missed.   

LIFE IS ABUNDANT AND SOMETIMES HARD!

Aren't you glad God made sunsets, sunrises, rainbows, and seasons....Oh, Fall in all it's glorious color praises the Lord, and so can we!

http://www.freeimageslive.com/galleries/nature/weather/pics/autumn_leaves_00195.jpg

Amazing Faith

Recently, someone told me my faith was amazing.  What she did not know was at that very moment my faith was very, very weak.  My immediate thought,"if she only knew..."
  
My faith had become a small ember buried under  the ash of old wounds, the ash of forgotten hurts resurfaced, the ash of doing hard things,  the ash of longing unfulfilled.  The ashes smother and block out the fresh winds, that can spark even the smallest ember into a roaring flame.  

On top of the ashes someone has thrown new logs...the logs of everyday tasks, the logs of the mundane, the logs of unanswered questions, the logs of waiting for answers, the logs of not enough hours to complete the daily tasks. The logs wait for the flames to lick at them...consume them and bring the light and warmth, but the ember struggles to stay alive.  

Perhaps this is amazing faith
  
Perhaps the tiny flicker that can receive a fresh wind, a new stirring and leap into consuming flame is still amazing faith.  The amazement is in the potential not the size of the ember.  It still glows however faintly.  Still carries the capacity to light, to warm, to set a blaze all that it touches.  
Stir up the ashes oh Lord, Blow them away so your fresh wind can awake the ember. 

Consuming fire rise to tackle logs of daily life, turn the logs into life giving moments.  Turn the darkness into light, the cold into heat.  

Take my small ember and use it to light a fire.  Amazing Faith.  I believe my ember is enough.