I absolutely love Christmas time. It is my favorite time of the year. I enjoy the atmosphere, the movies, the lights, the food, playing Santa Claus and all the other works-but I really love celebrating Jesus' birthday. It is not cliche' to say "Jesus is the reason for the season" because he is. Christmas 2009 has come and gone. I'm not going to lie I am really sad. I have such a wonderful time surrounded by family and friends that I wish everyday could be like Christmas. Filled with peace, love and happiness. Jesus your birthday was awesome!
Wednesday afternoon we traveled to Longview, Tx (where my hubby is from) we had a little Christmas gathering at his brothers house (Adam) It was really nice to hang out with everyone there. Adalie is so spoiled by her uncle Adam and his wife Janice. They gave her a ga-gillon toys (yes, ga-gillon is a word, you didn't know?) Anyways, Addie really loves them as a matter of fact she often wants to call them..she doesn't say too much on the phone cause she gets shy, but she likes hearing their voice. I guess the truth is she adores all her family on Stephens side of the family. Kaci, Mimi Pawpaw Nana..everyone-- She likes mine too, but we spend way more time with my in laws since they are so much closer. My family lives almost 9 hours away so Adalie only gets to see them a couple times a year. I wish it wasn't that way, but such is life.
Christmas eve, was probably my favorite for many reasons. I enjoyed the day full of family. Stephens' other sister flew in and surprised Adalie with more gifts. By Christmas eve she had already opened her bike, clothes, shoes, babies, arts and crafts stuff and a little drum set. (Yes, she is rotten, cute..but rotten) Needless to say that house was noisy, but fun :) Around dinner time we headed over to a Chruch service with Stephens dad and all his children (including us wives) it was great. I loved the church the worship was amazing and it was just a sincere heartfelt church. The pastor and co pastor were from England so their accents rocked! I love English accents-wish I had one. Either way, once Church was over we headed home for a nice dinner, open some gifts and hang around...about 11 pm Stephens brother Adam (whom is a police officer in Longview) shared with us a story of a call he heard of. This woman in Longview had waited until the day before Christmas to go and gather gifts for her son..it was the only time she could because of the lack of money. She recieved her paycheck and went to spend her last dime on her son. When she was finsihed at one store she entered another just to come out empty handed. She had been robbed--all the gifts she had in her car for her son had been taken! Devestating ain't it? You know of allll days why do people do this on Christmas? I'm aware that Christmas isn't a jolly time for everyone, and some can't afford it so stealing is what they do--but man, that just broke my heart.
We are a pretty tight knit clan so we put our heads together and came up with an idea. We asked Adam to locate the ladies name and number we were going to surprise her with gifts for her son. We raised over 600 dollars in the matter of 20 minutes for this family. Stephens' step mom gave some food as well, Janice and Stephens' oldest sister were able to find a CVS that was open to buy some gifts cards and toys for this 5 year old boy. It was so touching I tell ya. You could feel a peace in our house that night, that God was among us.
For that is what Christmas is all about-Jesus came into this world as a gift to us because we were in need of a savior and in turn we spent our Christmas morning driving an hour to deliver a gift to a family that was also in need. Definitely not a typical Christmas morning, but oh how rewarding it was to see their faces light up. So humble and lost for words the mother of this child shyly thanked us and on our way we went.
For once in my life Christmas was meaningful, symbolic and selfless. It wasn't easy to put aside my selfish wants of Adalie waking up to opening presents, but this was worth more than that...it was about Jesus and his sacrifice...it was about his selfless actions for others in need... it was about giving. Although it was a great gift nothing can replace Jesus...we were given the best present of all, HIM.
Jesus thank you for coming into this world. Your sacrifice has saved my life, it's yours. I love you.
No comments:
Post a Comment