Share your truths.....

Recently, I have been thinking back to my childhood a lot. Remembering my Dad stretching every penny he brought into the house.

He would walk in with bags from the grocery store after a long day of work. Of course, he would greet us happily. Smiles and hugs for everyone. When he would walk into the kitchen, he would start dinner while packing lunches for all of us children. Later in life, I see that he showed his love with food. He would always pack me these over-stuffed lunches. Sandwich, chips, a piece of fruit and a candy bar. Every day, without fail. It was something that I would look forward to and friends would envy. They envied me!

As I walked through the grocery store to buy food for dinner, I picked up the one pound ground beef package. When I looked at the price I nearly dropped it. Over ten dollars for one pound of ground beef. I thought to myself, "How much is this dinner going to cost?" It floored me. I looked around at all of the people wandering through the aisles and wondered, are they worrying about money? Are they counting every penny as they figure out how to feed their family? It broke my heart.

I have already prepped my children that this Christmas won't be as extravagant as the past. What I hope is that I have taught my children that it's not all about stuff. Life is so much more than that. Christmas morning is so much more than that. When they come down for Christmas, I hope that regardless of the number of presents under the tree, they remember why we are celebrating. The birth of Jesus. The gift that God has given us for redemption.

In addition to having the kids wait for me to get coffee (I wasn't kidding about that), we always start every Christmas morning silently. We all sit in the living room while their Dad takes a moment to read the Christmas story from the Bible. We start by remembering. After he reads the story, we take a moment and pray. We pray and thank God for the greatest gift we will receive today. The promise of salvation. Once we finish with our prayer, we turn on Christmas music and then open the gifts together. I love this tradition that we have started.

Please know my dear readers, when I share how I celebrate, I do so to share my stories with you. Not to sway you or change your minds on how you believe. I never want to be the person screaming from the street corner, SAVE YOURSELVES. I know that if you want to hear or to search for yourself, you will do so as I did as a twenty year old in my apartment den. I just know, I want to share my hope as promised.

This holiday season is hard. There is no other way to say it. There is a huge piece missing and he had blond curls and a laugh that could light up a room. When I wake up Christmas morning, there will be one text not sent, one phone call not made.

I will end with this story about my brother. I remember when I first became saved. The excitement was bursting and I wanted to share it with everyone. Like a small child holding a treasure. Look everyone! Look at the treasure I found. My brother called me. He was nominated the spokesperson. "Hi sis. I wanted to call to talk to you about what you have been telling everyone." I paused, "What do you mean?" He responded, "The fact that you are talking about Jesus to everyone. It's getting old. No one wants to hear about it and everyone asked me to call you to tell you." It's funny looking back. Normally I would have been livid. How dare they all talk about me and ask John to call and smooth it over. I didn't though. I replied with this, "John, hear me out for a second. Let's say you meet the woman of your dreams. You love her with all of your heart. You want to share with everyone all that she has done for you and how you would love me to meet her. In response I say this, 'John, I'm really happy for you but can you please stop with all this talking about her? It's really getting old.' How would that make you feel? I'm not trying to annoy everyone. I'm just so excited and I want to share the joy that I have found." He understood immediately.

John and I, for a very long time, had a relationship where we could tell each other our truths. I miss that about him. I wish I could say that it ended on September 13th, but it didn't. We stopped sharing our truths years before when life became too difficult to share.

Christmas will come regardless. It will come even though there will be an empty seat at the dinner table or an empty space next to the tree. My hope is that we continue to share our truths with our loved ones. We share not just the joys, but also the sorrows. Leaning on each other and loving on one another. Carrying the burden for each other when we cannot ourselves. Much the same way that Jesus carries mine.