It is almost 5 AM and today is Christmas Eve. I have my coffee and there was a time I would be enjoying (?) a cigarette. Not any more. I checked with my friend Cathy who quit the same day I did. It has been 12 years! My lungs are clear which amazes me since I smoked for 54 years. God has sure been good to me in that area. Well, let's face it, God has been good to me in every area of my life.
First he gave me the wisest mother that ever lived and definitely the one who was the best mother for me! Momma always said that I thought she was the best because I never knew any different. She might be right on that! I do wonder if I had been born into money and prestige if I would be the same person I am today? I wonder had my first husband been the one I stayed with my whole life, would I be the same person I am today?
I can look at my kids and see shades of my mother in each and every one of them. Debbie is the oldest and the most like me. She even looks like me. She spouts things mother would have said. "What don't kill you will make you strong." She is a pioneer woman to the core. She lives with her husband in Eastern Kansas and is raising 3 grandkids on a 40 acre dryland farm. Her husband, Hammer, bought her a new backhoe or something like that for her birthday or some such occasion. Mine used to send me flowers!
Today is Christmas Eve. Holidays are not my strong suite. To be honest, I could function very well with out any holidays, but nobody asked me. Tonight I will attend the Christmas Eve service at my church. Christmas is the holiday that marks the birth of my saviour. I will go alone and I will come home alone. I will make oyster soup for supper because that is what Kenny and I did for years. I guess I am a grinch! So be it.
The end of the year is for me to look back and reflect on how things went and how I can improve and do better next year. I spent New Years Eve of 2003 watching fireworks on Pikes Peak. I set alone in the cafeteria in a hospital where my husband lay on life support. While I do revel in the baby in the manger, I am a realist. I know how the story ends.
So, to my friends and family, Merry Christmas! The babe in the manger is our hope for the future. Take time to reflect on just what that babe did for us. Our hope for the future and the remembrance of things past. New Years is coming and we have a chance to make this next year different.
So when you think of the baby and the manger remember it is all part of a much grander scheme than we could even imagine. It is the birthday of our saviour!
Welcome to my life, Jesus Christ!
