Ponderings ... Wonderings by Joylene M. Bailey

My husband and I raised three daughters. So when our first grandson came along things felt different. Not just because he made us grandparents, but because he was a boy.

I was privileged to meet him on November 21, 2013, the day after he was born. And in the month between his birth and Christmas Day that year, I found myself pondering the birth of Christ in a whole new way. He was a baby boy too. In fact, I pondered much more than His birth. And I pondered it from the perspective of a mother. More and more, I found myself thinking of Mary.

I watched my daughter fall in love with her new son. I watched her care for him and coo to him. I thought of Mary, loving her new baby boy, cooing to Him, cuddling Him. She knew He was very special, but did she know anything about what the future would bring? The angel Gabriel had only told her that she would bear a son and name Him Jesus, that He would be great and that there would be no end to His kingdom.

As I watched my daughter with her new son, my heart broke for Mary.

Joy and pain; love and fear. A mother’s heart goes through many things as she raises her child, but I wonder … could anything be more heartbreaking than watching your child suffer to the point of death? Mary, on that first Christmas Day, did you know your Son would have to suffer so?

It is probably a God-given kindness that we cannot see into the future.

Our grandson turned four this year. Every year that has passed, I have thought about Jesus at that age. More than that, I have thought about Mary, raising this boy she is growing to love more and more with each passing year; how He and His siblings are filling her mother-heart to overflowing and then …

I wonder ... Once Jesus had risen from the dead, and appeared to His disciples. Once He had taken His rightful place in heaven ... was her heart healed? Or, like Jesus’ risen body bore the scars of his death, did her heart still bear the scars of her heartbreak?

Perhaps I’ll ask her one day, when I meet her in heaven.

*****************

Joylene will be relishing her time this Christmas with four-year-old Little Man, as well as Sweet Thing, Sunny & Bright, all of their parents, her Cowboy, Babe, and a cat named Calvin. 

She blogs at Scraps of Joy.

Links of history - Violet Nesdoly

I am the writer of our family’s annual Christmas letter. I have, in my "Christmas" file, a copy of each one I’ve written! One of these years (maybe this one) I’ll make a photocopy of each and compile scrapbooks for my now-adult kids. But before I indulge in that luxury, I’ve set myself the task of writing this year’s letter.

For me the hardest part of composing this yearly newsletter is getting started. To help me with that I usually reread past versions to see how I’ve done it before. And so on Friday, I hauled out the Christmas file and flipped through this family history-in-letters.

The first thing that hit me was how technology has changed things. The earliest letters were handwritten on lined notepaper. A couple of years after that I designed letters that folded into cards with calligraphy or pen-and-ink drawings on the front. I painstakingly printed the artwork and the letter itself on parchment paper those years to keep the ink from fuzzing, as it did if I used bond. Then I photocopied them.

In 1990 I must have hauled out my old manual Olympus to do the Christmas letter - because it definitely has the typewriter look (white-out and all). Then in 1991 I used a borrowed word processor. Finally in 1992 I got a computer which I’ve used till the present, printing the letters on a variety of Christmas stationary.

In addition to mirroring advances in technology, a bit of the history of the times comes through these letters too. For example the 1990 letter begins:

In only a few more weeks 1990 will be history. It has truly been an amazing year in our world, with the unexpected toppling of much of the Eastern Bloc, the sudden flare-up in the Middle East and looming uncertainties throughout our country as befuddled politicians tackle one brush fire after another...

(My goodness, that last bit could be a description of Canadian politics any year!)

In 1997 a mail strike was pending and that year’s letter started out:

To write or not to write that is the question,
Whether the mail will move we do not know
But when it comes to friends, e’en the suggestion
That we’d forget them’s answered with a ‘No!'

And a year later, as email became the favorite mode of communication for me, I jingled:

Email would be faster
a visit even better,
but as tradition would dictate,
from us a Christmas letter....

The most favorite part of rereading these letters, though, is reliving times with the kids. Here are a few favorite bits.

From the 1990 letter when B. had just turned five:

...This is a conversation we overheard between him and a little boy in the next seat on the ferry this summer. They were watching some object in the sky.

Little Boy: ...maybe it will go as high as Santa Claus.

B.: Santa Claus is a sham

Little Boy: (silence)

B: Do you know what a "sham" is? It’s a fake.

We nervously glanced at the little boy’s parents and were
relieved when the two boys started talking about something else.

(Though Santa was never part of our Christmas tradition, we did not coach our kids to dash other kids' illusions about Father Christmas - honestly.)

And from that same letter:

S’s comeback to B’s endless knock-knock jokes:

B.: Knock-knock

S.: This is a recording. There is nobody home.

Finally, from the 1993 letter, when S. was 10 and not the keenest pianist:

...I brought some dispute between the children re: piano practice times to Ernie, our resident mediator and after he suggested a solution to the problem, he declared, "I’m as good as Solomon," at which point I heard S. mutter, "Yeah, cut the piano in half!"

Alas, reading all these old letters brings me no closer to starting this year’s. But I’ll think of a way to begin it in due course. Because I wouldn’t want to break this letter chain– which already spans 20 years!

*****************


I first posted this on my blog in late November 2005. That year I did get around to putting together a collection of letters for the kids. I made color copies of each, slipped them into plastic protective sheets, printed a photo collage cover, put the works into D-ring binders and called the project "Our Story in Letters."


So take up that pen or head over to that keyboard to write your annual Christmas letter. After all, you're writing much more than a letter - you're writing history.

Hiding in Plain Sight

Donna Dawson copywritten January 2007

You walk through this world with a confidence that tells all who see you that you are happy. A cloak of sophistication rides your shoulders in a silky covering. A bright smile hovers on your painted lips and light dances in your eyes. But I know.

I see beyond the lovely clothing and the graceful steps. I look deeper than the surface glance and pasted on expressions. I hear the distant call of a lost soul buried deep within the furthest recesses of your busy mind. And my heart breaks.

You think your lifestyle will bring joy. And those who see you might believe that. But your laughter rings hollow and the blackness of your pupil leads to the darkness in your heart. I follow that abysmal tunnel. Past irisis of unusual blue/green. Past the flesh that makes up veins and nerve endings. Past neurons to the very essence of thought. You struggle against the intrusion. Against the quiet whisper of a voice that calls your name in longing.

But I will persist. Because I love you and it isn't my will for you to walk this life alone and lost. I will continue to call to the silent ears that can't be seen. And I will wait in hope and anticipation until the filthy rags and sickening stench of wasted struggling come to an end and you see me as you were meant to see me.

And then you will set aside your lost soul and take up my love. You will cover yourself in my embrace and you will truly dance with the beauty of a child reunited with her parent. And we will rejoice together, forgetting the fake and useless existence that you now cling to. And you will revel in the relationship that is meant to be.