Category: advent

Christmas Cards-Yes? No? Maybe?

Getting Christmas cards out on time was always a challenge in my busy household.  

So for the last years of kids at home, we transitioned to sending New Year’s greetings.  It was easier to get a family photo with everyone home for Christmas, there was no artificial deadline to send them and we could include a “thank you” or respond to news in their Christmas letters.

I haven’t sent anything for three years.  

What could I say?  

And a family photo was out of the question.

But faithful friends and relatives keep sending us theirs.  

As I was looking at them this past week, I decided to make a go of it one more time.  I sat down and pecked away at the computer keys until I composed something that felt right.

HERE’S WHAT I WROTE:

“Hello from the DeSimones!

For anyone counting, it has been three years since our last Christmas/New Year’s update.

I just could not figure out how to send greetings when our hearts were so very wounded and sore.  I’m still not sure how to do it-but am plunging ahead. 

We are learning to live with the absence of Dominic.  We are learning to carry the weight of grief and sorrow that burden our hearts.  We are managing the necessary tasks of life.  We are moving forward in careers and education.  We live and love and even laugh.

It’s not the same.

It will never be the same. 

And that’s a testimony to our enduring love for Dominic and his lasting impact on our lives.

We look forward to heaven, where everything that the enemy has stolen will be redeemed and restored. 

I’ve been reading The Jesus Storybook Bible-it is a remarkable way to re-imagine and re-engage with God’s Story.  My very favorite part is a paraphrase of Revelation 21:4:

‘And the King says, “Look! God and his children are together again.  No more running away.  Or hiding. No more crying or being lonely or afraid.  No more being sick or dying.  Because all those things are gone.  Yes, they are gone forever.  Everything sad has come untrue.  And see-I have wiped every tear from every eye!”‘

[Here I inserted updates on each of us under the title “newsy bits”]

We are thankful for each one who has encouraged us, loved us and stuck with us in this journey.

It’s our prayer that this Christmas season the Saviour will fill your hearts-hurting or happy-to overflowing with His love, grace and mercy.” 

You may not be ready to send Christmas cards. Maybe next year, or maybe never and that’s OK.

I’m sharing so that perhaps my words can help you find a way to tell your family’s story.  

Christmas for those of us missing a child we love will always be different.  It will always be tinged with sadness.

But we are stronger together.

We can hang on harder when others hang on with us.

I appreciate each person who reads this blog and takes time to comment.

Thank  you for encouraging, loving and sticking with me in this journey.  

May the God of all hope fill your hurting hearts with hope as we wait together for our faith to be made sight.

 

 

Waiting For Release

 

This is our third set of holidays without Dominic.

I didn’t think I’d survive the first week after he ran before us to Heaven, but here I am approaching three years since he left and I’m still breathing.

I don’t know what I expected, exactly.  

Maybe that I’d get better at this?  Maybe I figured that I would be able to work my way through the maze of emotions and arrive at some destination?  

I‘ve become proficient at pushing down the rising tide of tears and terrible thoughts.  I’m great at ducking into a bathroom or around a corner or behind a store display when that fails and the tears fall.

My heart has learned this odd rhythm-thump, thump, thump, skip a beat for where Dominic used to be–carry on.

The loss and sorrow are no longer a burden I carry, they’ve settled in my bones. 

I’ll never be rid of them.  Never be able to put them down.    

Sometimes my life feels like a kind of prison.  The freedom I once enjoyed-freedom from the knowledge of loss, freedom to hope, freedom to live with joyous abandon-has vanished.

I am powerless to change my circumstance.

Dominic is gone, gone, gone.

Like Israel, I must wait on the Lord to bring release.  

o-come-emmanueal

 

So this Christmas season I’m thinking about BOTH the birth of Jesus-the long-awaited Messiah-AND the dark and empty years of waiting that went before.

I know the end of the story.  The price has been paid and the place prepared.

I’m waiting for God to open the door.

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of advent.

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Repost: Surviving Christmas

February, 1992 I came home from the hospital with our fourth baby and woke up the next morning to a house full of children ages infant to six.

I thought that would be the most stressful and challenging season of my life.

I was wrong.

Read the rest here:  Surviving Christmas

Christmas Decorating: Take Two

 

 

photo-35

Last week I wrote how my well-laid plans for setting up the Christmas tree and decorating had gone awry.

I thought I was ready to pull out the old ornaments with the old feelings and forge ahead.

I was wrong.

But yesterday, after gazing at the “lights only” tree for all these days, I decided to make another go at it.

I packed up the tear-inducing decorations and stored them safely away.  I pulled out the box of ornaments I used last year-mostly new things I bought or made since Dominic left for Heaven.

Each group of ornaments was chosen because it helps me hold on to hope.

I have hearts-stuffed, handsewn hearts, papier mache hearts, corrugated cardboard hearts.

Lots of hearts.  

hope-and-heart

Hearts to remind MY heart that it was Love that brought Jesus to earth.  It was Love that kept Him here.  It was Love that took Him to the cross even after He had begged His Father in the garden for another way.  And it was Love that broke the chains of death and raised Him from the grave.

 

That same Love is keeping Dominic safe until we are together again.

Stars to help me remember that Jesus brought Light into darkness.  They help me hold onto the FACT that His light will not be extinguished.  They speak truth to my spirit that even though this Valley is dark, it will not last forever.

star-ornamentI made some balls from little scrappy bits of fabric wrapped and glued in place. The pieces are useless alone-not big enough to do a thing.  But together they are beautiful and strong and have purpose.  

My life feels like it’s been ripped to shreds.  But even shreds are useful in God’s hands. I’m waiting to see what He plans to do with them.

In the meantime, I hold on.

Old Christmas cards turned decorations are strung together and hung as visual prayers. I save my cards from year to year and cut out the lovely and meaningful pictures and scriptures.

I made my own paper copies of the Names of Jesus and burned the edges.

I cling to the promises in each Name.  I may reach heaven through the fire of tribulation and trial but no power on earth, above the earth or under the earth can stand against His Name.  

names-of-jesus

I will be preserved.

Little drums hang as silent witness to Dominic.  His heartbeat lives on in mine. His rhythm that thrummed through our lives and is missing now still matters.  He is making a joyful noise in Heaven.

He is not silent.  

One day I will hear him again.

So tonight I sat in the soft glow of the lights AND the ornaments remembering…

Remembering years past when life was very different-untouched by tragedy and gut-wrenching loss and also remembering the promise that this is not the way it will always be.

mourning-to-dancing

 

Hope is My Lifeline

 

 

2013-christmas

A grainy picture is all I have left of that last Christmas together.

I first wrote this in 2013 before our circle was broken:

Eighteen days to ponder the coming of God’s great Gift.

We know the end of the story which can make us jaded and impatient.

If for a moment we can recapture the desperate hope that was in the heart of Israel longing for Messiah and then in the next remember that He has come, we will be forever changed.

I can’t characterize many things in this grief journey as “gifts”.

But there is ONE thing:  I am desperately longing for the coming again of Jesus the Christ.

The longing hope Israel felt is so much stronger in my own heart.

I understand in a very real way how much Israel hoped for His first coming.  I feel it in my bones.  

I wake every morning thinking, “Is THIS the day?”

jesus-is-coming

Hope is what I hold on to.

It’s my lifeline.

We Were Not Made to Die

i-have-come-home-at-last-c-s-lewis

My children grew up surrounded by life and by death.

On our small farm they got to see puppies, kittens, goats, sheep and horses take their first breath. We watched turkeys and chickens hatch-struggling in that last great effort to throw off the shell.

And we also witnessed life’s end.

Every. time. it feels wrong.  Every. time.  it feels like defeat.

And it is–we were not made to die.

God didn’t create this world to be full of endings.  He made it to be full of life and fellowship  and love and for His glory.

But we live in a broken world.

When the first man and first woman looked away from their Loving Creator and embraced temptation, death came in through sin.

adam-and-eve-sin

That longing we have, that sense that death is WRONG-that death is not the way things SHOULD be-that’s the spark of God’s Spirit speaking to us.

It’s the Father’s call to our hearts to turn to Him.

God the Father has made provision for eternal life with Him through Jesus the Son.

Yes, this world is full of death-it has touched my life in a very personal and awful way.

But my heart and God’s Word tells me that death is not what we are meant for-that there is MORE.

We who have known only futility, decay, homesickness, and exile, have found strong encouragement to hold fast to our hope because we are no longer helpless and alone. He’s already gone before us, trail blazing straight through exile and death into life as our Captain. Yes, I know this is true. I can hope even in the midst of doubt.

Through his death and resurrection, he has flung open the gate, torn the curtain that divided us from God’s presence, and done it all as the incarnate Son of Man. God has not forever abandoned his creation. Mankind is still his good work. In the body of Jesus, Man has gone into the presence of God, to his throne room, to the company of myriads of angels dressed for a party (see Hebrews 12:22). I’m in a form of exile now, but exile doesn’t mean abandonment. Jesus has made sure of that.

~Elyse Fitzpatrick, Home

As we move toward celebration of the birth of Christ, I pray we look also to His life, death and resurrection and the promise of hope He has placed in our hearts.

advent-candles

 

 

 

 

 

Repost: Grief and Holidays: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

The election’s over and whether we like the outcome or not, the calendar pages still turn. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming fast.  For some of us carrying the pain of loss, the holidays are a treacherous time.  

I’m reposting this link in the hopes it might help make things a little easier:

its hurting again

“I know it is hard.  I know you don’t truly understand how I feel.  You can’t.  It wasn’t your child.

I know I may look and act like I’m “better”.  I know that you would love for things to be like they were:  BEFORE.  But they aren’t.

I know my grief interferes with your plans.  I know it is uncomfortable to make changes in traditions we have observed for years.  But I can’t help it.  I didn’t ask for this to be my life.”

Read the rest here:  Grief and Holidays:What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

Faithful Waiting

I fell in love with Ron Dicianni’s painting,  “Simeon’s Moment” many years ago.  My husband bought and framed a print for me and I sit opposite it every morning as I drink my coffee.

It never fails to touch my heart.

There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel’s consolation,and the Holy Spirit was on him.  It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, he entered[b] the temple complex. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for Him what was customary under the law, Simeon took Him up in his arms, praised God, and said:

Now, Master,
You can dismiss Your slave in peace,
as You promised.
 For my eyes have seen Your salvation.
You have prepared it
in the presence of all peoples—
 a light for revelation to the Gentiles[c]
and glory to Your people Israel.

Luke 2: 25-32 HCSB

We don’t know how long Simeon had waited, how many times he had looked at a male child brought for dedication only to realize that he must still wait–but we know that Simeon returned to the temple because he trusted God’s promise.

Then one day, perhaps a day he thought would be like any other, THERE HE WAS–Messiah had come.

As he cradled Jesus in his arms, spoke prophecy over his baby head, Simeon’s faithful waiting was rewarded.

Yet even at that moment, Simeon did not receive the fullness of the promise–Jesus was yet a tiny child.

But the foretaste of God’s trustworthy love flooded his soul and he was able to say,  “You can dismiss Your slave in peace,..for my eyes have seen Your salvation”.

Waiting is hard.  

I miss Dominic and I long for the time when my family circle will be restored.

Sometimes the days drag on and it seems as if the promised light and redemption is far away.

But one day, perhaps a day that begins like any other, CHRIST WILL COME.

So until then, I will rest in the foretaste of God’s trustworthy love and wait faithfully for His appearing.

 

Anticipation

All around the world children climb in bed tonight, barely able to close their eyes because they can hardly wait for the celebration tomorrow.

Anticipation is a powerful motivator.

Looking forward to a reward, children may find that they really CAN behave.  Thinking ahead to family flooding in, parents might realize that those piles of clutter that have been too big to tackle are easy to get rid of.

Presents, food and family fellowship will bring in the new day.

Anticipation fuels expectations and all too often our perfectly imagined Christmas morning doesn’t quite measure up.

Inevitably someone will be disappointed because what they thought they were getting for Christmas isn’t under the tree.  Eventually a cross word disrupts the harmony and hurt feelings reign.

People disappoint us.  Life rarely turns out the way we think it should or hope it will.

But there is One in Whom I can place my trust.  One Whose name is Faithful and True.

He came as a Babe but reigns as a King.

My heart longs for the day when wrong is made right and my faith made sight.

On that Day, I will take hold of my heart’s hope and I will not be disappointed.

Until then I will rest in the real promise of Christmas:

At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises: Glory to God in the heavenly heights, Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.

Luke 2:14 MSG

 

Costly Worship

I don’t know what the wise men expected to see.

It seems natural to us who know the story–who know the REST of the story–that they ended up finding Jesus-The King of the Jews-the One whose birth was announced by a star in a humble abode.

But I think it might have surprised those rich rulers traveling so far to worship Him.

In their experience, future kings were born in palaces, surrounded by servants.  Such births were announced and trumpeted loud and long.

So when they found this little child with poor parents in a poor house, perhaps they thought they were mistaken.

We don’t know because Scripture is silent on this point.

What we do know is that they offered the gifts they brought, they worshiped the One they had traveled long to see.

They undertook a treacherous and costly journey for the purpose of worship.

True worship is expensive.

To raise my voice and my hands after losing Dominic is hard. It requires that I trust God regardless of my circumstances.

It means I lay my treasure at His feet even when I don’t understand why or how He intends to use it.

But worship inclines my heart to the God Who made it.

Just like the star led the wise men, worship leads me to the feet of Jesus.

And there is where I can safely leave my treasure.

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.

Matthew 2:1-2, 10-11 KJV