Christmas Day

 Today, Christmas morning dawned and my family was not together. My oldest child is in the hospital with a serious injury. Yesterday, Christmas eve, I shuttled back and forth from the church to the hospital. At three in the afternoon my husband was at the hospital so that front was covered. The pageant was on the horizon. I decided that it would  be harder to explain what needed to be done to get the pageant underway than it was to just show up and do it. I rushed home, threw on something red and went to the church for the pageant. Once I was at the church, I felt surrounded by love and support; everyone was so willing to provide assistance. It was a warm, comfortable place to be for a couple hours. The children were excited and happy and the parents were kind. The generosity of my friends and family at the church was a balm to my very worried soul.

 It is sometimes hard for me to accept help. Last night I tried to hold tight to my responsibilities, but I realized, once the children were out of their costumes and back with their parents, that I needed to accept the gift my friends had given me, the freedom to go right back to the hospital and sit with my boy. It was a wonderful and generous gift, not many people want to sort and fold costumes, store risers, remove masking tape from the floor,  or serve sandwiches on Christmas eve, but that is what my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ did. I don’t know who did most of it, but I thank all of them, known and unknown.

 Now that our son is being discharged this afternoon, albeit with many, many restrictions and conditions, I again feel thankful for God’s many blessings on this Christmas day. We will go home and be together and I will now let down my guard and weep and sleep and feel blessed to be physically surrounded by my immediate family and spiritually surrounded by my church family.

Merry Christmas,
Michelle