basically our Christmas morning went like this:
while amelia’s stocking hung empty on the fireplace, a light rain sprinkled from the sky. it’s amazing how quickly that lonely stocking brought back floods of memories of what we had and what we lost, and yet at the same time brought upon me so much happiness and joy for even knowing the little girl in the first place.
i’ve thought an awful lot about mary, the mother of jesus this christmas season. i’ve thought about her love and compliance with what the angel told her, and about her faith in the lord’s plan. did she know her son, whom she loved so much, would later be crucified? did she know he’d be abused and broken and hurt? did she know he’d bear the rest of the world’s sorrows and pains and fears upon his shoulders? how she must have wanted to help him, how she must have wished she could take away his burden. she knew that boy was special. but did mary know that her son’s life would change the course of humanity forever? did she know her son’s sacrifices would bring happiness and joy and peace? i sure love that woman and i can’t wait to meet her.
sometimes i wonder what amelia’s purpose was, and why she was meant to live so long. why did we get to take her home? why did she take a breath at all? i think and think and speculate until my whole day is shattered just in pieces of theories and thoughts on the matter. i guess it really isn’t important, is it? but as humans we’ve just got this desperate need to know the answer to things. especially hard questions.
christmas really was lovely, though. it was relaxing and peaceful and as much as i love my family, tyler and i agreed it was rather nice to spend a big holiday with just our trio. we even let jack get a little crazy with the vanilla cupcake goldfish grahams santa left in his stocking (we almost never eat sugary, pre-packaged food, so this was a big deal for him). being at our own house, we didn’t feel as bad when he started stomping his foot and wildly screaming, “one! two! three!” and trying to do somersaults in our kitchen for ten minutes. sometimes it’s little memories like “the time jack went kooky from all that sugar” that are nice to create in your own home.
am i alone in this? i do love our family and i miss them terribly, but i’m also a fan of staying home for the holidays.
…p.s. do you think mary kept a journal, or did she really keep all those things in her heart? if she kept a journal i really would love to read it someday.
1) i love staying at home for christmas – it’s kind of a selfishly wonderful thing.this is the second year we’ve done it. we are able to alternate thanksgiving & new year’s so it still seems like we’ve seen all of our family “during the holidays”.
2) while i was preparing my yw lesson last week, i spent quite a bit of time thinking about how mary “pondered” these things (i think it’s luke 2:20ish). and my first thought was of course she had to have written the events down because how else would she be able to really reflect on everything so clearly. surely should suffered from momma’s brain. but then i wondered if she would have even been taught to read & write, i’m not sure what the cultural norms for women back then were.
3) isn’t it so beautiful to know that one day you’ll have all of the answers to your questions about your sweet little amelia. i’m sure that in the moment that knowledge doesn’t help, but through your blog & fb i can see how many lives she touched beyond your family.