Sunday, December 25, 2011

It Is Enough

My most precious gift this year has been experiencing the grace of God.
This Christmas season I'm able to testify that:  His grace is enough!


These past ten days I've been sick with a head cold that kinda kicked my butt for a few days. When  I'm not 100% physically (whether overtired or sick or whatever) it makes it more difficult emotionally to stay joyful and have hope. Do you know what I mean?

So, with this being our first Christmas without my daddy here I was not in a holiday mood. In fact, about four days before Christmas I told hubby I only wanted two things this year:
1- to feel better
and
2 - to not bother celebrating Christmas

That second one sounds pretty horrible for someone who is a Christian doesn't it? I mean Christmas is one of two very special times we celebrate our Christian faith each year.


I was just having such a hard time imagining us around our table Christmas day without my daddy being there.......
In his red shirt.
Enjoying the turkey {no gravy}.
Teasing me about how I made the mashed potatoes.

There would be five instead of six.
This was gonna be so very hard for all of us.


Anyways, four days ago I posted on Facebook how I was feeling. How I wasn't even gonna make the homemade applesauce that daddy liked so much. Nope, not this year. Kinda my way of sticking my tongue out at .... well, I guess at "life".

But friend guess what!?

Soon after posting on Facebook I had friends praying for me and my family. And soon after they started praying I started to feel some better about Christmas. The next day I was feeling like the head cold wasn't beating me up any longer. By Friday evening me and hubby went to the mall and had a nice time doing a little shopping.

We called my mom on our way down to the mall and she mentioned how she was having a difficult time of it, especially during the beginning of the week. But, how by Friday she was feeling, for lack of a better way of explaining it - numb.

It wasn't until Saturday when she said it again that I remembered what a friend told me at my son's memorial service. She said she was praying for God's anesthesia to carry me through those first days. She had asked Him that so I wouldn't feel the terrible, crushing pain of my loss until I was ready to start healing.

It dawned on me - what does anesthesia do? It puts you to sleep or makes you numb.
Wow, it was God's grace protecting mom from the feelings of deep pain and sadness this first Christmas without daddy. To her it felt like a "numbness". Not a bad feeling, but kinda strange and not what she had expected.



Today is Christmas. It's been a good day. We - the five of us - were together for a delicious turkey dinner. No tears, well, almost a few once or twice. And I tried to talk louder when a Christmas song {we were playing some background music as we ate}came on about "missing you this Christmas".  {dumb song}And I had counted out six napkins while setting the table.

But, really, it was a very nice afternoon.....
We exchanged gifts.
We laughed & smiled.
We even had a few silly moments.
We still took our yearly Christmas pictures.

We felt God's grace getting us through what could have been a very sad and emotional day.

And even though....
We missed him.
We missed his teasing and making us laugh.
We missed not being able to give him a gift and get a hug in return.

We did make it through the day.
All because His Grace truly is enough.


So friend, I'm wishing you an abundance of Christmas blessings-
laughter, family, hope and joy.

And may you find His grace to be enough this coming year.


BTW~ I know it's been quite a while since I've spent anytime here at my little blog. So very sorry about that. My plan is to get started posting again much more regularly after the first of the year.

2 comments:

  1. So glad you were able to enjoy Christmas a bit. A friend wrote a post on the connection between sickness and spiritual warfare that your post made me think of: How to Fight Spiritual Warfare. I pray you have a blessed rest of the week!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ashley,
    Thanks for stopping by and especially for taking the time to share your friend's post. I'm looking forward to reading it tomorrow on my coffee break.
    Blessings,
    Debbie

    ReplyDelete

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