Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Christmas

Christmas is one of my absolute favorite times of year!! I love seeing the joy on my kids faces, just because it's Christmas! I love Christmas music! I love shopping! I love Christmas food! All of it! It's such a BEAUTIFUL time!
As I reflect this year, I've been thinking a lot always about the babies...what they would be doing now, how much my son would probably hate being a big brother (and especially sharing the attention), how my nurturing daughter would probably love helping with everything for the babies, and how my logical daughter would probably adore the babies but be super annoyed that they would destroy her creations.
Now, the pain is less; the joy is more. Still the bittersweet knowledge of knowing that we truly have 5 kids, but only 3 here. 3 to buy Christmas gifts for, 3 to fight with each other, 3 to hug and love.
As I think on that I was realizing how much pain our all-knowing God experienced. God sent HIS ONLY son to be a baby-- fully knowing he would experience pain, suffering, and death. And God did that for US. God's pain was MORE so our JOY could be abundant. Christmas is that time for abundant joy.