Christmas-grateful.......

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Today is Christmas day!  We made it everyone.  I hope you all had a blessed day celebrating this significant holiday.  I started my day praying quietly in bed.  I woke up on my own before my alarm, and not due to the voices of any children.......so I laid there a bit longer.  My thoughts drifted to some of the hard things we have faced this past year......and I felt Jesus telling me to just give them to Him.  Lift them up and do not feel their burden any longer.   He wanted my Christmas to be about love and family and blessing......and he was asking to take my heavy  hurts........so because He asked, that is what I did. 

Do you know the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas"?  well, we sing this song in our house every holiday season.  My mom collects holiday decorations with this theme......and it is a part of our celebrating.  The song was created, so the story goes, in England during a time of religious persecution when Catholicism was outlawed in the 16th-18th centuries.  The song was written as a kind of secret code that could be sung in public without getting in trouble.  Early Christians used it as a learning tool to represent the teachings of church doctrine. 

I have an ambition to write about each of the twelve days....and what they represent....starting today.  We'll just see how I do with that.  Wish me luck. 

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me......a partridge in a pear tree. 

The true love is God the Father.....and the partridge is Jesus Christ.  In some reference, this bird was similar to a pheasant.  If that is true, than it is a ground bird and would not be in a pear tree.....but isn't that just like Jesus.....to be mysterious and confusing, and yet beautiful.   I am so glad that the true love gave to me this partridge in a pear tree......because without Jesus,  I would have had a lousy day today and without Jesus it would have been just Monday and not Christmas. 

I am grateful for the wonderful celebrations we have had these last few days.....and still, tonight the little kids are fighting and don't want to share their toys.  I kid you not....Precious just said to me, "there is nothing to do".  I think my brain may explode in the frustration of that......give me a minute.  Or a day. 

I'm gonna go fight with my patience and my self-control and my grace to find Christmas-grateful back for the last 3 hours of Christmas.  I'll be back tomorrow. 

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