The Christmas Card

Well, I didn't get Christmas cards out this year. And I'm not going to. I have a collection of our Christmas card photos from the past years. I've always said I needed to create a scrapbook or photo album using our Christmas card photos and I haven't yet done that, but maybe I will, eventually. Some of my favorite pictures are the "outtakes" from trying to get pictures using the automatic self-portrait feature, or chasing one or two little boys around trying to get them to "sit still, smile normally, just please cooperate and then this will be over!"

We had family pictures made in April, thanks to my new friend Rachel and her growing photography business. I had cajoled the males who live in my house, because we hadn't had family photos made in over five years, and we ran out after church on an unseasonably cool April Sunday afternoon to the nature trail near our neighborhood. I knew immediately which one was going to be our Christmas card this year!

Just a few weeks later, I sat in the hospital, writing down names of everyone who visited, and tearing off the return address labels of every card we received. I looked forward to an enlarged Christmas list, and thought about the great opportunity it would be to update people on Mitchell's recovery ("a new heart for Christmas!"), and to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers, well-wishes, and other shows of support.

Christmas is upon us, and it is not the holiday we have celebrated in the past, nor the one we hoped for even six months ago. It is, as Mark Schultz has penned, "a different kind of Christmas this year." But that does not mean we don't think of our dear friends and family both close by and far away. We wish for all of you happy holidays, no matter how you choose to celebrate. But our wish is that you have peace in your heart, that you extend kindness to others, that your smiles exceed your tears.

Mitchell didn't need a new heart for Christmas, because his heart had already been changed when he accepted Christ's gift of grace and peace. He came to Jesus as a small child, and was secure in his future. While we were not ready to let him go, we do find peace that we know where he is, and we know how to get there, and we know we will be together again someday. We miss him, terribly, every single minute. The loss is ours, here, not his. If one soul has come to know Christ through Mitchell's life and our loss, then can I honestly say it is worth it? I can. It doesn't make my grief any less, and it doesn't make me miss him less. I don't pretend to know God's plan, and I will tell you honestly, I do not understand. But I don't have to understand it to know who is in control -- and it isn't me.

A gift for Christmas: Peace. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives." (John 14: 27) “The peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) The peace that passes understanding is real. It is a gift that we cannot explain.

May peace be with you this Christmas, and in the new year.