I love getting Christmas cards. I love looking over the pictures and rejoicing at what God is doing in the lives of friends and family near and far. I love to see how precious children are growing, how lives are being changed, restored, rearranged for God's glory. I love writing Christmas cards - and even managed to get a picture sent out the year that we returned from Colombia during our last adoption just six days before Christmas. How organized I was! And how my priorities have shifted.
Last night I was crossing things off my to-do list, but not in the way I thoroughly enjoy. I was crossing off the things which were just not going to get done because they did not make the priority cut. Christmas cards/photos was just one of those things again this year. As I sat going over the necessary bullet points to prepare for this morning I stopped to take time to open and read the cards that came in the mail, soaking up the details of each one. Oh, how I enjoyed that sweet break in my day, and I quietly mourned that it just would not get done again for us this year.
Those thoughts of regret brought me zooming back to a time when the kids and I baked cookies to deliver to our pastors at church, a time when we baked cookies and delivered them for Valentines day to my husband and all his co-workers, times when my husband and I lead an adoption support group, when we were part of an orphan ministry team at our church, when we were involved in a small group, when our hearts were full and our ministry was focused outside the walls of our home. Make no mistake, our hearts are full now, but our ministry is very much focussed here on being purposeful, working to help keep anxiety at a minimum, building safety and trust within the family relationship. This is a sweet and wonderful ministry that God has blessed us with and daily we rejoice in the opportunity to love and parent our children. We delight when God shows us purposeful opportunities for our family to reach out together for His good purposes.
Our pace is slower now, our scope outside the home a little narrower, but God is growing hearts here and it is so sweet to see. It's really worth passing up writing Christmas cards again this year to be involved in this journey here at home!
1 comment:
Oh, how good it has been to my soul to read your words today! I am also making a great long list of things that just will not happen...as well as a list of things that are going to be changing in our lives. I'm taking time to grieve...but also to move on. God does have mighty things for you to do in your home...things of eternal value. Christmas cards and the like just don't make the cut sometimes. I feel very much like you today, dear friend! May God make it abundantly clear what He has in store for our lives today and our futures tomorrow!
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