This Christmas has been one of the best my family has ever had. We had the joy and excitement that comes with young children but enough maturity in our oldest to be able to have conversations of depth about the magnitude and significance of the season. Josh and I entered this month with a fresh perspective and have soaked up all of the sweet moments and lazy mornings.
Maybe it’s weird, but I actually love packing up Christmas every year. One reason is because January is a special month for us where we remember God’s faithfulness through our daughter’s illness. Also, a few weeks after Christmas, Josh and I go with friends on what I call the most wonderful weekend of the year (more on those events later). And although I’m usually not a neat freak or a super organized person, I feel like there is something about cleaning up and moving things out after Christmas that is freeing and makes me excited about a new year and a new start. Something about order and less clutter is motivating for me and allows my mind to be less distracted. It gives me space to plan and hope and dream.
This year as I un-decorated, I turned the TV off and gave room for my head to think actual thoughts - something that is rare and requires intentionality on my part. As I took the ornaments off of the trees, I thought about when we put them up, and how we were still feeling really sad and crying a lot. Our first foster child had just left and we were sad that he wouldn’t be spending the holidays with us, but thankful that he would have Christmas with his own family.
And then I thought about the gift of the last month and how special it has been to have this time with our children, how usually December feels crazy busy and chaotic but this year it all of a sudden felt like we had so much more free time. It’s amazing how taking one child out of the equation can make 3 feel like no big deal. We had our usual struggles over how much is too much to give our kids and questions of whether or not we are creating selfish and entitled little people, but as a whole, those chaotic moments and wonderings of how we are stinking it up as parents have not overshadowed the feeling of gratefulness and rest that we have experienced.
Packing away things that sat in a box for 11 months of the last year make me think about what has happened in our lives during that time. Is that weird? Maybe that’s weird. I think most people just pack up. But when I put things away I always think about what was going on in my life the last time I packed this stuff away. What I have experienced? What is different? What have I learned? How have I grown? HAVE I grown?
This year has been one of clarity for me, where God has really given me a dream and a vision and a sense of purpose that I haven’t always had. When I think about what was really important to me as I wrapped up last year and that thing that I really longed for in 2014, I am thankful that my heart and desires aren’t quite so surface-level this year. I feel thankful for the highs and lows that we have experienced as a family and as a couple and I feel thankful for enlightenment that has changed my heart and my outlook.
But more than looking back, packing up makes me look ahead. I wonder what the next year will be like and where we will be when we pull these boxes back out. I feel excited about a new year and new lessons and, hopefully, new growth. I feel grateful for God’s mercies which are new every morning and a chance to mature in some areas where I’m weak and, God willing, to become more aware of the areas where I’m weak. I’m excited about another foster child and opportunities to be a mom to a child that needs love. I’m excited to teach my own children more about what Scripture has to say about social justice and caring for orphans.
So as we pack away 2014, I am looking ahead and excited about things that are on the horizon for my family. Thank you for caring and reading and praying for us as we continue on this path which God has called us on. I look forward to sharing about our journey.
My prayer for my children this year - biological and those that I will be entrusted to care for - is one of hope, and it comes from 1 Peter 1:8:
“You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.”
May your year be filled with glorious and inexpressible joy!