What Sweeter Gift

When I look over most of the posts I've written this last year, they seem to mostly take on such a serious and spiritual tone. I think people who only know me through my blog may think I have no sense of humor or lighter side at all.

It just seems to be that I often end up writing in the wee hours of the morning when my house and mind are quiet. Usually by then all that's left in me are my inner most thoughts and so here we are again...

Christmas is so different this year, well in some ways. I am still making more plans to create things and go places and do things than we have time for but Christmas just feels so much more real this year.

For years, in fact every year we have been married, Christmas has been spent in Flagtown with my parents and siblings. This is...yes I can hardly type it, our 15th Christmas married! How old am I, are we?! I was 14 when my parents were having their 15th Christmas together...and they had 5 kids!!! But I'm getting off subject.

This year we are staying home.

This year we have what we have wanted for every Christmas since 1997 (in '96 we were only married for 4 months). In '96 we just wanted to be pregnant and were still completely hopeful that we would be...someday.

This year we received the greatest gift and it's not even Christmas yet!


Every song I hear sung about the Christ child seems almost as if they were singing about my little Z. Not that I am thinking he is as holy as the Christ child was, anyone who has been around him knows that. But the gift of a son, to us, at Christmas.

What sweeter gift?


Thinking of the wait we endured for our little boy has caused me to think of the wait the world endured until the Christ child was born. For centuries before his birth the world waited. Prophets since the time of Adam prophesied of Him who would come to redeem us all, of Him who loved us enough to come experience life on this Earth and eventually die for us. We all awaited His birth and I believe we were all very aware of when it occurred. I believe we lived before we were born and even then were aware of Jesus, who He was and what He would come to do for us.

The part that has really gotten me this year is of the incredible wait time we all experienced until that day and how we must have rejoiced when it finally came. How we must have desired to sing with the angels just to announce that He had come.

I think of the wise men and shepards who believed He would come. What must they have felt when they saw that star and were visited by angels telling them He had come. Did they go and excitedly tell all their family and friends the joyous news? Did they gather what they needed and travel as quickly as they could just to see Him? I think they must have because that is what we did when we were told of a son coming to us.

In the days that must have followed before they arrived at the stable did they tell everyone they passed where they were going and who they would see? Did strangers look at them with wonder trying to understand what they were so happy about?

I think of Joseph.

What an amazing man. What must he have felt like?

And Mary.

Did they feel almost unworthy to be part of such a miracle? Did Joseph worry about being in a strange city and feel completely unprepared to take care of his wife and new helpless baby?

Maybe Mary had pictured herself giving birth in a clean, comfortable place with her mother or sisters present. Did she have plans to make this babe's entrance into the world the best she knew only in the end to be away from home, away from family, in a stall with animals. I wonder if she felt she had disappointed the Lord thinking it just wasn't good enough?

Surely, they did not think they would be there in a home made for livestock to even stay a night much less give birth to the Son of God. How hard it must have been for Joseph to be unable to offer anything better.

Maybe only later did they realize it was all just as it was meant to be. The Christ child born in a stable; quiet and kept away from the crowds, warm and safe. Surely that journey and stay was a trial of their faith and probably took them to the depths of humility.

What a gift to be blessed to be His mother. To be able to sacrifice a part of yourself for Jesus. What a gift it has been to be chosen to be Z's mother. How grateful I am to be a recipient of the two greatest gifts I know. Each such miracles in my life.

I rejoice this Christmas to have a deeper feeling of gratitude for all who had part in Jesus' birth into this world. Words I cannot type to express the feelings of my heart this Christmas. I thank my Father in Heaven for the tremendous gifts He has blessed me with. I will always remember the joy I felt over the news that I would be a mother. It gives me a glimpse of the joy I must have felt to know that Christ was born of Mary in a stable under a new star.

Merry Christmas, may it be as joyous!