Category: faith

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Our Wait For Snow is Over….

We woke up yesterday morning to SNOW! I love playing in the snow, and so we all got out there to shovel the driveway, and then we built a snowman. It was a perfect snowy day. Since it was still snowing, the skies were very cloudy and gloomy. Maybe I should be cheesy and write, “But the snowman’s bright orange nose brightened our day!” Now, that is over the top! Cheesiness aside, we really did have a lot of fun playing outside.

Today is Lily’s Sunday School Christmas service at church. She is singing “Away in the Manger” with her preschool class. I’m sitting with the third grade class I teach. I felt slightly guilty assembling last minute treat bags yesterday. I bought my students Christmas candy; normally, I like to buy something that is not sugar-filled. I just didn’t plan ahead this year.

Today is also the fourth Sunday in Advent, so we get to light all the candles on our Advent wreath! Emmy and Lily have been waiting anxiously for the day when we don’t have to leave some candles unlit. Now everyone in our family will be able to blow out a candle. All Advent long, I’ve had to pretend to blow out a candle after we sing our songs around the wreath. Lily blows out a purple candle, Emmy gets to blow out the pink candle, and of course Daddy gets to blow out a candle because he’s the best Daddy ever. Mommy always has to wait. *sigh*

Advent is all about waiting; waiting for the Savior to come. May you have joy and peace in these last few days of waiting, as you get ready for the traveling and the family reunions; as you prepare for the feasts and the present giving. In these hectic days, don’t forget that the best is yet to come!

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Uplifted

I was really enjoying posting every day for NaBloPoMo at the beginning of November. My writing journal was filled with topic ideas, and I was going to write, write, WRITE every day. I was so excited about writing.

Then, the middle of the month hit. First, I got a phone call that Mom was in the hospital, then the call that the test results were in, and then, the phone call that we should come and see Mom. My sister had a bad feeling. The whole family gathered together in Iowa, in a cancer ward, in a private room with one very sick occupant.

And we were glad we did.

And I blogged through it all, through tears, pain and grief. I wasn’t sure I should be writing, but when I did write, it made me feel a little better. I usually wrote right before I went to bed, and that helped me fall to sleep at night. (I didn’t always stay asleep, but then it was a stressful time.)

And I was glad I kept on writing.

My sister and I were looking at my blog one night, right after Mom died.
She showed me the last post Mom read. It was the one about five birthday cakes. Mom was a faithful reader of my blog. She loved the posts about her grandchildren the most.

And I want to keep on writing about her grandchildren. And all the other things that I want to tell her.

I looked in my writing journal to see what I could fill this blog with next, and this was the first thing I saw: “Be more uplifting about your faith–write less about funerals.”

There’s a certain irony to that thought, written down less than a month ago.

Remember when I wrote about being shaken awake a little after 3:00 a.m. by my Dad? He was telling me that Mom was gone. This refrain from a new hymn, written for our church’s centennial celebration, popped into my head. To my knowledge, Mom had never heard it; out of all the hymns that Mom sang with us, this was one she had never sung before, and yet the refrain echoed in my head; bringing some comfort on that horrible morning:

We have found the one Messiah; come and see! Come and see!

Mom has truly found the one Messiah; He called her to come and see. She believed that hell must be separation from Jesus; now there is no more fear of separation, no more fear of pain. She is with Him now.

What comfort this sweet sentence gives; I know that my Redeemer lives.