Nightmare Before Christmas

confessions

Me and my dreams… I will never be a Jacob or a Joseph or a Peter… I will never be someone who could trust that a dream was from God. I dream too crazy. I think even the Almighty fears what goes on in this head of mine when I lay down to sleep, (just kidding, I know He fears nothing!)

So it is… what? Four days until Christmas? Yep, Four days. I have zero, count them… 0… gifts wrapped. Our tree has been up since the day after the infamous Iron Bowl, and it stands all lonely with it’s skirt undecorated with boxes, and bags, and bows… I don’t believe I have even taken a picture of it this year. December has been one big blur… just like all of 2011 and the end of 2010 has been.

But back to my dream…

Let’s see I recall walking in the back door  and turning out of our kitchen and into the dining room to see a big white ceramic bowl that was purchased for my husband’s stepmom (this bowl is not a real gift we have purchased, I don’t know where it came from).
I ask him why in the world the bowl is out?
He says, I used to it to make the chicken wings. I needed a big bowl to mix them in the hot sauce.
Well now he is in the hot sauce!
I come up to him and begin hitting him on the shoulders with the dish towel that I have in my hand while I yell, Now I have to go back to town! You know I hate shopping! Why in the world did you do that! I can’t believe you!
He of course is laughing at me the whole time, which just makes me madder.

So I go and grab all the rest of the gifts and go to hide them so I can get them wrapped before he gets a hold of another, then I can’t figure out where to do this without my kids, because I don’t want them to see their gifts.
So I find a room at church (yes now I am at church) and plan to hide in there to wrap, but then somebody sees me and asks me to help with something for a minute… I look at my gifts, sigh, and go off to help.

The next thing I know I am surrounded by crying kids who can’t find there baseball that was hit into a thicket of pine trees (Christmas trees I do believe) and I have been recruited to find the ball. Somehow I now have the ability to walk around in the tops of the trees and search out the ball. I am surrounded by green pine and then those trees turn into something like astroturf and I am up under it grabbing hold of the ball and pop out triumphantly holding it… although for some reason it is quite squished.

Now I head back to tackle my gift wrapping and remember that I still have to replace the big white bowl!

So I look at my gifts again and sigh and head off to the stores, yet I am in shoes that make my feet hurt, so I am quite grumpy… pouty… and frustrated.

Somehow in the midst of all this I also end up on a road trip with my in-laws and I am refereeing my girls on who is going to get to push the elevator button and all I can think about are the gifts, unwrapped and hid in the room, waiting on me.

Finally, this morning, my husband comes home from his nightshift and wakes me up from my craziness and guess what…

Those gifts are still in a room hid, unwrapped, waiting on me.
And yes I still have one more shopping day I have to take.
And I must ditch the kids in order to do all the above.

I awoke to discover my nightmare was not a dream, LOL!
Tis the season to be jolly?

>The Gift

>A gift is a gift, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a crushed bunch of flowers yanked from my own garden, a half-eaten cookie, or color-smeared little hands dropping M&M’s directly into my mouth. The presents I receive are always a reminder of how much I’m loved.

We serve a Lord who is the Author of creating and giving gifts. His own Word declares, “Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above” (James1:17).

(quotes from Fierce Beauty by Kim Meeder)

Tonight a very sweet couple that I know will be saying hello and good-bye to their 5 month old in the womb child. They will discover if their precious little one is a little boy or a little girl at the same moment that they are stroking a beautiful face that they will never hear laugh or even cry…

But even this child, this moment is a gift from our God, and this little one is perfect. Even this little one will serve a purpose, has a purpose, this little life that grew and developed and lived within the safety of his or her mother’s womb for a purpose. However brief this child’s life was…this child has impacted the hearts and souls of many.

This precious gift was given to this wonderful couple for them to immediately return back to the One who fearfully and wonderfully knitted the little one in the womb.

This is one of those moments when we ask why…

My heart is heavy for the couple for several reasons…

One, I am in a time of grieving for the children I have not born and will not bear because I chose a permanent birth control that I wish I had not… and I grieve.

Two, I have been there… almost. I lost a child when almost in my 4th month. I still wonder if my child was a boy or a girl… and I miss not knowing my child. My baby that would be 16yrs old this year.

Three I have given birth to two beautiful ones and I know how hard it would be to have had to say goodbye to them… to lay them alone… my youngest still hates sleeping by herself.

So my heart breaks… I have been crying for this couple and praying for this family since the news hit my cell phone in a prayer request.

And I think about the gift.
This beautiful gift of life… of a soul.
And now more than ever I rejoice that my God so loved the world that He too gave a gift.

 For God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life.
John 3:16   
 
Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.  Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:21-26
 
Oh yes I believe this!
Thank you God for sending Your Son.
Your Only Begotten Son, to this earth knowing that He would die.
Knowing that He would suffer.
Knowing that His life would be brief here, but eternal still.
 
And this is our hope in death.
Death is not final for those in Christ.
Because He lives, we live.
 
I will hold my child one day… I believe that.
I will meet them and this is not a final goodbye for this couple, they will see their baby again.
This beautiful one has been rejoicing with the angels for hours… yet we cry.
And that’s okay.
We cry because we are the one’s standing and waving goodbye while the one we wave too is grinning from ear to ear as they wave back because they are going home, they are going on the greatest adventure to an exotic destination beyond any of our wildest and most magnificent imaginations. The presence of God and the Paradise of the King.
 
For from Him
and through Him
and to Him
are all things.
To Him be the glory forever.
Amen.
Romans 11:36