Copyright Rebecca Hamilton. All Rights Reserved.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>I spent several hours yesterday wrapping presents.<\/p>\n
And I still have a couple of really tough-to-wrap presents to go.<\/p>\n
That, and I need to buy one more gift for one of my sons since the mail isn\u2019t going to get what I already bought here in time.<\/p>\n
My husband went to Advent confession this week. I confessed a while back.<\/p>\n
My daughters-in-law are pitching in to help with the Christmas cooking, as is the best friend of one of my kids\u00a0that I call my adopted son.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to super clean the house for Christmas. I don\u2019t have enough gas in my tank. I\u2019ve been lick-and-promising this place for a year now, and I\u2019ve got to do more as soon as I can. Every closet, every drawer, needs to be emptied, rearranged and the no-longer-needed things sent along to Goodwill.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been working on a slightly complex piano solo of O Come, O Come Emmanuel, one with variations and pretty additions, for a while now. I\u2019m also learning George Winston\u2019s version of Carol of the Bells. It\u2019s pretty stuff \u2026 when somebody else plays it. With me, it\u2019s sort of plunky. But I love the doing of it.<\/p>\n
One reason it\u00a0took so long last night when I was wrapping was that I spent quite a bit of time playing with my granddaughter\u2019s new toys. She\u2019s 11 months of miracle, and her toys are the most fun of any gift under the tree. One, a bug-like thing that\u2019s incredibly soft and squishy and that makes lots of cute little sounds every time you touch it, makes me laugh every time I fool with it.<\/p>\n
Christmas with a baby is the absolute best of life.<\/p>\n
Here are the things that matter most:<\/p>\n
My granddaughter\u2019s laughter.<\/p>\n
Her sweet little self, snuggled against me in bed while we count fingers and toes.<\/p>\n
Making baby girl sandwiches with her Paw-Paw in which we kiss and squish her from both sides as she giggles with delight.<\/p>\n
My two tall sons who are both good men of gentle and loving character. I am so proud of both of them.<\/p>\n
My 91-year-old baby girl, my Mama, who never stops telling me how much she loves me and whose eyes always glow with love when she looks at me.<\/p>\n
My husband who sometimes doesn\u2019t understand me in the Mars-Venus way that men usually don\u2019t understand their wives, but who is my other half, my spouse, my friend and my love.<\/p>\n
My few friends \u2014 it is always a very few for any of us \u2014 who stick with\u00a0me even when they disagree with me, and who pulled together to form \u201cTeam Becky\u201d to get me through the tough year just past.<\/p>\n
My Church which is a highway to heaven, if we will just have the humility to walk its way.<\/p>\n
The pastors I\u2019ve been blessed with, good men who try their best to be good shepherds.<\/p>\n
My country, my beloved country.<\/p>\n
My guardian angels who have walked me through more than one fire.<\/p>\n
St Michael the Archangel, who, odd as this sounds, feels like a friend.<\/p>\n
And\u00a0first, foremost and forever, my Jesus and His dear mother.<\/p>\n
I did my best in my own uninformed way, to consecrate my efforts to Mary\u2019s \u2026 how\u00a0do I put this? \u2026 to her disbursement of them. I did this a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n
I pray every night for everyone I know who has died and for all those who don\u2019t have anyone to pray for them. I pray and give them\u00a0whatever weak merits I\u2019ve earned. I place\u00a0those merits in her hands to use according to Jesus\u2019 will.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t fully understand what I\u2019m doing. But I just ask Jesus\u2019 mother to use whatever good I can do in a way that it will do what Jesus wants.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t do that myself because I don\u2019t know enough. But she can.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the key and the core of Christmas as I understand it. Because of that birth in a humble stable of a baby boy that, even then, the powers of this world wanted to wipe from existence, we are free to approach the throne of God. We have access to God made man and His mother, to whom He entrusted us.<\/p>\n
The Old Testament tells us that no one can look on the face of God and live.<\/p>\n
But the shepherds did.\u00a0The wise men did. And we can.<\/p>\n
God made Himself as weak and humble as possible to allow us to see Him and know Him.<\/p>\n
There is no sound\u00a0in this world sweeter than the laughter of a baby.<\/p>\n
There is no hand so soft, belly so kissable, no face so trusting and pure as the face of a baby.<\/p>\n
There is also no human more vulnerable, more helpless, more in need of our constant care and love. Without love, babies literally waste away and die.<\/p>\n
As do we all.<\/p>\n
We no longer have to say that if we look on the face of God we will die. We can look to the manger and the helpless baby lying there and see God, shorn of His glory in an act of love for us.<\/p>\n
Life, all human life is sacred. Because He made it so.<\/p>\n
You and I matter, because we matter to Him.<\/p>\n
I love my granddaughter with a the same blinding love that I felt for my own babies. I would kill or die, and never care which one it was, to protect her.<\/p>\n
That, my friends, is how God feels about every single one of us. He became one of us to save us. He died for us.<\/p>\n
Our salvation begins where the human story always begins. It starts with a baby.<\/p>\n
Merry Christmas my dear friends. Thank you for sharing this journey with me.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spent several hours yesterday wrapping presents. And I still have a couple of really tough-to-wrap presents to go. That, and I need to buy one more gift for one of my sons since the mail isn\u2019t going to get what I already bought here in time. My husband went to Advent confession this week. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":25384,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1838,48,1],"tags":[1164,1526],"class_list":["post-31058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-2","category-pro-life","category-uncategorized","tag-advent","tag-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\n
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