I wish I could send each and every one of you a real card... but this will have to do. Thank you for visiting me here and occasionally leaving an encouraging word. I appreciate it so much. Merry Christmas!
Dear Ones~
A hearty Merry Christmas to you
all! May God bless you and your families
during this Christmas season and may His presence be gloriously evident to you
all in the coming year. May we all have
eyes to see His goodness in our lives.
2017 was mostly held together by
strings of ordinary days, pleasant in their normalcy and comfortable in their
commonness, but there were some bright and shining baubles sprinkled
throughout, marking this particular year with particular moments to look back
on.
A first ever family vacation with
the Newman side of the family for three nights(!) (Practically
miraculous.) Corynn getting an
opportunity to work on the World’s Largest Mosaic (Ithaca, NY). Andrew getting rabbits, in hopes of starting
a business. (Just check his charts. $$$ He’ll make THOUSANDS! $$$) A pirate parade float. Judah finding and adopting a baby possum
for a day. A new (to Matt) tractor. Painting hundreds of porch spindles. Matt re-siding the Granary from lumber from
our own woods. First rides in hot-air
balloons (even for a most terrified Mama) thanks to some very generous friends
who have one. Ruby had puppies- twice! And most recently (as in last week), the first broken bones: not happening to one of
the rowdy boys as one would expect but to dainty Adele’. Though we’ve discovered through this
experience that, as Matt would say, “she’s got some grit”.
The much more plentiful ‘ordinary
days’ were full of the same old exhaustion that comes with rearing a houseful
of children, even the exceptionally great ones that God has given us. There was the same raucous dinner tables,
the same pizza and movie nights every Friday, the same floor covered with toys
and papers and school books every day and the same “Quick! We need to clean this up before Papa gets
home!” rush around 6:15pm. There were
the same garden chores and garden feasting in summer and the same from scratch-cooking
and canning that happens every year.
There was the reading of good books, aloud to all and curled up by
oneself. There was Mama sitting on the
couch trying to listen to individual, choppy letter sounds become fluid words,
without eyes glazing over, growing impatient
or (most likely of all) falling asleep. There were the same moments of putting in
the renegade mini-horse and caring for the cows and chickens. There was blueberry picking and flower
bouquets, handmade gifts and homemade donuts.
There was cider pressing (over 50 gallons in total this year but not all
for us) and toilet bowl fishing (more times than I care to remember) by a
certain precocious 1 ½ year old. There
was the same hardworking husband leaving for work in the dark and coming home
in the dark. And the same lack of spare
time for said man. There are the ever
present concerns for family, for friends, for finances and our nation that constantly
keep us on our knees and sometimes, awake at night.
Our culture of brokenness, the
slaughter of innocents, the corruption of a society that flips truth on its
head: the darkness of today can overwhelm.
But God came down to meet us in our darkness. He is no stranger to wicked rulers, cultures
in turmoil, to the government sanctioned slaughter of innocent children…they
were part of the nativity story just as much as the angels singing from the
heavens and the donkey carrying a Kingdom on his back.
Christ, the Bright and Morning Star, came to our world and
into our darkness to crack it open and give us Light. Not like a light switch, but like the Sun of
Righteousness. Suns rise in the east,
slowly… so slowly you may not even notice as it happens. All of a sudden a crack of light becomes a
sphere, stars disappear, dew melts and the earth is awash in light.
It still feels dark sometimes. So we wait.
And pray. But while we wait- we
can sing. And celebrate. While the world may not be bathed in the gold
of noonday Sun just yet, every moment the darkness grows more and more
faint. May we celebrate our conquering
King- and may we turn our faces toward the Light.
O come, thou Dayspring from on high, and cheer us by thy drawing night;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to
flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
