I absolutely love this time of year. Getting to spend time with family & friends, buying that special gift for someone I love, eating yummy cut out cookies, decorating, and so much more. What I'm most thankful for this time of year is Jesus coming to earth in the form of a baby boy to live a life knowing He was going to die for my sins someday. Wow! I wasn't even born yet, but He loved me enough anyways to take my place & everyone else's on the cross. Best Christmas present ever!!! Remembering this helps keep things in the right perspective when circumstances around me go in ways I wouldn't have chosen.
I titled this a different kind of Christmas this year because in a lot of ways that is exactly what it is. It's still Christmas, but it's different. We have four foster blessings living with us this Christmas who are oh so excited about all the fun that goes with this time of year. They come from many not so happy memories, so we're trying to help change that for them. Our oldest daughter decided to live her life without us being a part of it and left our family last January. This will be our first Christmas since she came to live with us that she's not with us. This is hard! She's welcome to be and we want her to, but we can't force our way into anyone's life that doesn't want us there. I know God loves her even more than we do & I've really been trying this past year to leave her in His hands, but to be honest I'm struggling big friends. I want to see her besides on Facebook. I want to hug her and tell her I love her. But God... Through all this God has been & continues to teach my heart that He truly is enough. Sometimes I believe that more than other times. I'm still learning. So thankful my Teacher is patient with me. This journey of loss this past year has impacted our marriage as well. We've had to seek help where normally we could just figure it out between the two of us. We've chose to love even when we didn't feel like it or even liked the other person. We had to learn to show grace even when our flesh wanted to quit. We know the enemy wants nothing more than to destroy our marriage & family, because if that happened then our ministry to our children & all the children God brings into our home would be ineffective. Guess what? That's NOT going to happen. The enemy CANNOT have our marriage or our family. Greater is HE that lives within us, then he that is of this world. Jesus has already defeated the enemy. We can have HOPE because of Him!!!
This past week our second oldest daughter was involved in a serious car accident. Someone ran a stop sign and hit her on her driver's side door. Her car is totaled but PRAISE GOD ALMIGHTY she is alive and well. Very sore, extremely sore, BUT alive!!!! I was thinking the morning after the accident how things could've went so differently. We could be planning a funeral this week instead of rejoicing that she is with us still. I don't take this lightly. I don't deserve His love & grace, but I'm so thankful God chose to spare her life Monday evening. Everytime I try to write about this the tears start coming again. This year has been so hard. But GOD... In His wonderful grace & mercy He met our daughter right where she was on Monday at 4:15pm and allowed her to walk away with pain & bruises, BUT LIFE!!!!! To God be the glory, great things He has done!!!!
So yes this Christmas is different this year. I'm still not done shopping, we haven't made all the goodies we usually do, I'm very tired, BUT... God is still good!!! I'll finish shopping eventually, our dear friends made plenty of goodies to share with us & even picked up groceries for us last night. I'll get sleep, but will continue to be tired because I'm a Momma, but that's ok. I get to be a Momma. I don't ever want to take that ministry lightly. My heart still longs for our oldest daughter to return, Christmas morning should be adventurous with four littles here this year, and I get to hug our other daughter and thank God again for allowing her to live. Christmas will be wonderful, not based on my circumstances, but because of JESUS!!!! Because of Jesus, no matter what we face, we're NEVER alone!!!
Merry Christmas!!!
