Cold crisp air, Christmas music, stockings, lights, pumpkin spice lattes, decorating the Christmas tree, making cookies, and shopping are just some of the things I have always loved about Christmas.
But more than anything, on Christmas morning, I love to wake my boys up at the crack of dawn so they can run into the living room and open their Christmas presents. I love all the laughter and excitement that fills the air. However, this year will be a little quieter and a little less excitement.
This will be the first Christmas without my 10- year-old son, Luke. What has always been a joy-filled time of family, tradition, and extraordinary love, is now covered with heartache, unbearable pain, and missing Luke more than ever. I am struggling now with wondering if I can get his stocking out of the attic and look at it everyday until Christmas. Is it worth seeing it hang there flat and empty of gifts on Christmas morning while everyone else’s is full? I never imagined when putting away boxes of Christmas decor last year that it would be the last Christmas I would spend with my child. I never thought it would be the last time I would see him open presents, empty his stocking, or decorate the tree. It was the last time I would ever hear about what he wanted for Christmas or the last Christmas present I would ever buy him.
This year we are missing a big piece of our lives. My sweet Luke will not be here to empty his stocking and open all his presents. Jake will open Christmas presents this year without his brother and he will bake cookies and decorate the tree alone. As long as he can remember he has always done it with his brother.
However, it gives me joy to know where my sweet Luke is. The one we are celebrating is the one he is celebrating with this Christmas. He is celebrating with the son of God, prince of peace, and Mighty God. He is singing with the angels and that thought amazes me.
So I will try my very best to embrace this holiday season. I have decided that this Christmas we will start a new tradition and do things different. We will give to as many kids with cancer and their families as we possibly can, we will pray and read our bible more than we ever have. His word is power, strength and life to a grieving heart. “…he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” We are walking in the shadow of death. We need to Let Him comfort and hold us. We have to hold fast to his promise of eternal life with Him and our saved loved ones. As the apostle Paul said ‘we are saved by hope.’ That is what gets me from one day to the next- waiting until I can see him again.
I want to be strong enough not to give pain precedence over honoring Jesus- to try to worship him even in the midst of this agonizing pain. I want His strength to be made perfect in my weakness. His grace is sufficient.
2 Corinthians 12:9-11 New International Version (NIV)
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong
