Christmas 2003 –You never know when the last one will be

Dearest Family and Friends,

I sit here at my picnic table in the woods. The wind blows while the leaves drop all around. Squirrels bound up and down making kamikaze leaps, but they never get hurt. I hear a crunching, crunching and know what I will see before I look up from my writing. Three deer, but yards away, slowly approach. The largest stops and stares at me. Her eyes demand, “What are you doing in my woods?” Then haughtily shaking her head, without the least fear she moves on.

Aliveness throbs through every part. The song of creation washes over me and I am full.

This year drifted gently by on the wings of possibilities, on promises of a future that what not yet realized, will come. Deep within, I sense a new hope for each member of our family waiting to take flight.

Heidi has continued to struggle with the aftermath of several strokes. The worst one occurred in January of 2002. It left her in a wheelchair without the use of her left hand. Thankfully, there have not been any more in almost a year.

While this new disability has not been easy for her, it has brought people into her life who give her the joy of companionship and take away the wrenching loneliness. During the day the angel of our family, Martha Gamez, takes care of Heidi’s basic needs and spends a great deal of time talking with her. She makes it possible for Heidi to engage in creative activities like beading that would otherwise happen sporadically. The Lord has blessed our lives with her thoughtfulness and joy.

Also this year, He brought kindhearted Pat, a volunteer for Brain Injury Services, to take Heidi out into the community to do those fun things like movies and crafts that Mom so rarely gets around to.

Justin became engaged to Hillary, a young woman that we have grown quite fond of this year. He has overcome some hard times from the previous year and grown into young manhood, living on his own and supporting himself. Lately he has experimented with ideas to broaden the business where he works. Time will tell where he ends up, but he has a lifetime of possibilities in front of him. Sometimes it seems we see and talk with him more than that last year he lived here and we have enjoyed his company immensely.

Galen has continued to move forward. He is a high school Junior who plays the cello well and is trying Lacrosse again this year after a nasty case of mono tanked last year’s season. He got his driver’s license this week. Although he has driven responsibly to date, I’m still terrified. Thankfully, Virginia requires lengthy hours spent behind the wheel with one’s parents riding shotgun. This has given us something we can do together and served as an overdue bridge builder. As a result he has integrated more firmly into the family has really stepped into a role of a very helpful young, “almost adult,” and has been a pleasure to be around.

Mike and I have also managed to “come through to the other side” regarding a number of distressing situations that we had to face in the preceding years. At times, except for the Lord’s nearness, each other, and many of you who we are sending this note to, the darkness pressed in so that I found it hard to breathe.

But the Lord made me a promise that it all would be, “like a dream, like a vision that passes in the night,” and “they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.” And indeed, it has been like a dream in which one has no control, and in which things go from bad to worse with no one to intervene.

Then suddenly, you wake up.

And sitting up, you realize how horrible it was. For a moment, you can still feel the pain and the terror, but then the early morning birdcalls come through the window and the first glimmerings of the sun poke through the shades in a way you can almost feel their warmth on your face.

And the fear vanishes like the mist.

Life is not so different, for this I am grateful. I am finding anew that as I walk with my hand tucked into the hand of the Creator, that while I am not protected from the searing pain that life too often has to offer, He begins ever so slowly, to shape my responses to that pain.

From that pain, He crafts the “treasures of darkness.” In the deepest darkness of the earth where the pressure is the greatest, He forms the most beautiful of jewels. We are each beautiful in His eyes and a jewel to be crafted, if we will but allow Him to do so.

One of the treasures that came out of our troubles has been the deepening of the true friendships we have with many of you. Another has been the deepening of family ties, both immediate and extended, and the forging of some new and precious relationships.

An unexpected treasure forged from the darkness has been the joy and excitement of leading worship in a mission church. For many months crazy thoughts about leading worship in a “mission church” somewhere plagued me. Finally I realized that maybe the Lord really was calling me to a new direction. I thought the thoughts were crazy this just was not something I would normally have any desire whatsoever to do.

But that changed, and to my surprise, I find I love it. For the first time, I feel like I have grown wings to fly. And with that freedom, comes the sense that I am newly freed to do more. Most of my life, each goal I have set has been road-blocked and stopped cold, and outside of loving relationships with family and friends, I began to feel that I could never achieve anything.

But that is changing. It is really changing. God in His mercy is not done with us at the time in our lives when the world is saying we are phasing out. Again and again, I have seen that even as people age, He still has new things for them to learn, new adventures for each to begin.

So, I invite you out onto this precipice, where the wind blows fierce and the air is crisp and cold, and like diamonds in the rough, the sun’s rays fall all around.

This is the place where if one trusts in the love and ultimate goodness of God, all things are possible in His grace.

From this very precipice one night long ago, the One by whom and with whom and for whom all things were made, stepped off and down into time.

From the vast halls of eternity, He stepped down into the confines of flesh. The Creator became the created to be with those He loves. He, who knew no need outside of time, became a helplessly needy infant, completely dependent on the goodwill of others.

And not all others bore Him peace and good will.

Instead, from the moment of His very birth, they would seek to kill Him, but God would protect Him until the time was right. And then – although this baby grown to a man would suffer – the Lord would raise Him to glorious victory.

As His glory shines all about us in the form of that star in the night so long ago, we pray that He would fill you with the glory of His light in this year to come.

Merry, merry Christmas!

With all our love,

Patty, Michael, Heidi and Galen Christopher