Today I've been baking Christmas cookies for our Ladies' Fellowship at our church. The Lord brought to my mind a treasured Christmas memory I had back when Christine was born. Christine's original due date was July 15 but she came 12 weeks early the day after my birthday, April 24 on Thursday, April 25, 1996 at 7:29 p.m. at Albany Medical Center Hospital. Needless to say, Rob and I were pretty well spent dealing with all the facets of having a premature babyOne Sunday in November or early December, after church I went out to my car and in the backseat was a bags of baking supplies so I could bake Christmas cookies. Although I wasn't able to bake them during Christmas, several months later I did. At that particular time, I didn't know who was the person who blessed our family. By December, Christine was 8 months old chronologically but was about 5-6 months in her actual development. As you can imagine, Rob and I were first time parents and our family was in Massachusetts and my family in Texas. We had to be extra careful insofar as Christine's outings and such. Back in October we had a scare of RSV so we were extra careful.
We did manage to put up our Christmas tree and decorations. The daily routine of caring for a premature infant and early doctor's appointment. Let's say, my motivation level to put up our Christmas decorations after Christmas was zero. You know how it is when you have a "heart's cry moment," and only you know what your need is along with your Heavenly Father. God in His amazing grace had Cindy Jurewicz, a friend from Trinity Baptist Church call and asked me what my needs were. During our conversation, I shared that it was early February and that our Christmas decorations were still up. She arranged for a time and came over, lovingly packed them and put them up in our attic. Now that is love in action.
It's always good and very healthy to have moments of personal reflections during the Christmas season. The temptation to allow the frustrations and disappointments to take root in our thinking is pointless and expends unnecessary energy. With the homecoming of Mom (Rob's Mom) to Heaven back on September 25, it would be easy to allow the sadness to overtake my thoughts. Instead, I'm finding ways to honor her by keeping my focus on Christ, serving my family and ministering to others.
My Mom said, "if you need something, give it away." If I'm in need of kindness, why not focus on being kind to others and re shifting my focus.
Thankful for this particular treasured Christmas memory! What ones do you have? Let's be deliberate and make many more.
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