Bringing Life
Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to you all, and whatever saying goes with whatever other holiday that happened since I wrote my last blog two weeks ago. We're still celebrating Christmas in this family. As I'm writing, we're all lounging in the car with Aiyana driving and Jenelle sitting in the copilots chair. We're getting close to Peoria, Illinois, which is closer to Jenelle's parents than our house. With her parents being our destination, I'm happy to say that we are making progress.
Christmas has its highs and lows for all of us. For me the highs are usually Christmas Day at home with Jenelle and the kids and friends that stop by, family get-togethers and the Christmas Eve service at church.
The lows are the pre-season getting ready, shopping and stressing about getting the right gift, along with everything seeming way too busy.
But once Christmas actually gets here I love it. And I really love the post Christmas season as well. The lights will stay on the porch through the winter. They just look so simple and pretty in the snow and make our little house feel so cozy. And the tree, well we go back and forth on that. Jenelle likes for the needles to fall off after I move it outside. I like leaving it in the corner of the basement as long as possible. Even if we remove the ornaments, it still brings life to the basement. With the wood stove, bow range, video games and couches down there, that's where we spend a good bit of our winter evenings.
Speaking of bringing life. Most of you know that my Dad lives in a nursing home. At Christmas we were able to bring him to my brother's house for our family get-together. With Christmas right at the end of hunting season, there's often a lot of story telling about the ones we got or didn't get which used to lead into dad telling us about this huge buck that he missed six times, years ago. He always blamed it on getting a new .300 Savage lever action, and after using a slug gun for years, he just wasn't used to the sights.
Now Dad isn't as alert as he once was and it was kind of sad to just see him sitting there as we were talking. There was no story about the giant buck. But then Levi brought in the rack from the buck that he shot this year. He set it in Dads hands, and click, the lights came on. Seeing his eyes light up, him saying “Wow!”, that was a highlight for me. And that's what Christmas is about.
God can bring life to each of us, no matter what our situation. And we can be a part of bringing that life to others. Just like Levi sharing his buck with Dad brought joy, we all have things that can bring joy and show God’s love to others.
So that's my hope for this year. Lets keep the trees green and the lights glowing and lets all do our part in making sure that Christmas doesn't stop!
Happy New Year!
