A Light Will Dawn by Kristen Joy Wilks

This is our first Christmas without our sweet Newfoundland dog, Princess Leia Freyja.

This is our first Christmas as the parents of an adult child who has moved away.

This is our first Christmas welcoming a grown son home for the holidays.

This is our first Christmas with a new roof that doesn’t leak, not even a little.

This is our first Christmas celebrating with a daughter.

So many firsts. So much joy and pain, all smashed up and mixed together.

One moment I’m sharing photos of our dear Newfoundland dog with my husband, sharing tears, rejoicing at eight amazing years with the best dog ever. The next I’m looking for puppies, hoping God will send another fluffy blessing into our lives to shower us with slobber and make sure we have just enough dog hair on the couch to keep us humble.

The next I’m choosing Christmas gifts for our grown son. A set of silverware, a teapot of his own, and like every year a Lego. My husband and I stood in the driveway holding each other and crying when he drove away. But he visits, on purpose, to play board games with his dad and eat some homemade bread. He is coming home for Christmas. Let me say that again. Of his own volition, he is coming home for Christmas. He could do anything he wanted on December 25th, 
but he is choosing to spend that day with us. Now that, my friends, is a gift!

We inherited my grandparents' hand-crafted log home last year.

This year, we replaced that hand-crafted roof that leaked onto two of our sons’ beds. 

As I write, my husband is up on the roof banging around, racing a snowstorm to place the final strips of roof metal so that our winter will be warm and snug. Bee stings, yes, I would periodically hear my husband shout and thump across the roof as he outran bees. Smashed thumbs, random metal cuts, sore muscles from creeping across that steep metal roof trying not to fall. A fire crackling in the stove, a giant tree twinkling against the backdrop of log walls and massive picture windows that look out on our mountain meadow. So many blessings to go with the pain of roof repair.

No, none of the boys have gotten married and we did not adopt. I suppose that technically she is a coworker, a “camp daughter,” our maintenance director. However, this is a momentous occasion for someone in an all-boy family. This Christmas we get to welcome a wonderful young woman into our family celebrations. All our previous camp daughters have gone home for Christmas. This Christmas, we are her home, we are her family, we are the ones who get to celebrate the greatest of gifts by exchanging gifts with a young woman whom we love.

Most likely, your Christmas hasn’t lined up all perfect either. Maybe your joy isn’t complete, there is a bit (or a ton) of sorrow mixed in. While you enjoy one blessing, you grieve a loss. Maybe more than one loss. Maybe so much loss that the very audacity of a sparkly Christmas tree makes you grit your teeth and send a curt prayer Heavenward. Maybe what was supposed to be a praise and a song ended up as a muttered curse said under your breath and a wave of self-loathing to accompany it.

Oh, little lamb.

The man of sorrows is a God who is still God … even in the midst of this. In the dirt and darkness of a stable, the light of the world came. On the shadowed hill of Golgotha, love was put to death on our behalf. Sin is broken, Death is slain, our Lord knows the dark night and the storm and He still comes for us, His children, His lambs.

Lift up your face this Christmas. See, your King is coming.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” –Isaiah 9:2

“As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.” –Ezekiel 34:12

“So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.”--Luke 15:20

Kristen Joy Wilks writes from a remote mountain meadow that alternates between quiet and chaos. Her stories highlight the humor and grace God gives amidst the detritus of life. Follow Kristen on Instagram, Facebook, or try one of her chicken-themed books for free by signing up for her newsletter at kristenjoywilks.com

Kristen Joy Wilks

Morning Has Broken... by Liz Flaherty

I wish the title was mine, but we all know it's not. It's borrowed from a hymn written by Eleanor Farjeon nearly 100 years ago and made famous by Cat Stevens. The lyrics are copyrighted, so I can't use them here, but thanks to the miracle of the internet, I read them this morning. There are things that are just as splendid the 100th time you see or hear them as they were the first, aren't there?

When I saw daybreak this morning--bad picture here at the side--I thought, as I have all week, of Gordon Lightfoot. He passed away Monday at the age of 84 and the words of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" haven't stopped playing in my mind since. 

The church whose bell chimed 29 times the morning of the wreck rang its bell one morning this week, too, only it rang 30 times instead. Someone played "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes. Morning broke on grief and gratitude. I guess it always does.

What is with you, Liz, that you must continually write about loss?

Yes, those italics are quoting the voice in my head. But it's not loss I'm talking about. It's the gifts we are given on the way. The gratitude inspired by those gifts. 

I love churches, old ones especially. While I haven't attended that many of them, I visit them as often as I can when traveling. I worship when I'm inside them--worship being personal. Sometimes I just mumble thank you on the way out. When Duane was in Vietnam, I'd go into St. Charles--which was unlocked in those days--and light candles to plead for his safety. 

Something I've learned about churches--whether you go there for years or whether you just visit--is that even when you leave them, you don't love them any less. The gifts you receive within those walls stay with you forever. They give you things to pass on to others. No, not judgment, but tolerance and love for others and sharing.

 I'm feeling melancholy today, because of losses and changes and how quickly daybreaks, rainbows, and sunsets pass. But then I remember there will be more. Morning will break again, rainbows will light the sky and Bart See's barn again, and the sun will set with a light show that brings people to stunned stillness. 

You learn many lessons with age, and you don't learn a lot, too. You give advice when it's not wanted, share your opinion when it wasn't asked for, and you sing along with songs that are interwoven throughout your memory even when people wish you wouldn't. Grief and gratitude share equal space in that memory. 

I am blessed. I hope you are, too. Have a good week. Be nice to somebody. 

A Weird Place by Liz Flaherty

I'm late again. I doubt most people are aware of it--it's only 6:39 AM on Saturday morning. I've watched the morning sky, fed the cats, and gotten the coffeepot in the house ready for when Duane gets up. I haven't written the blog yet, although I like to have it done on Friday. I want for it to be there, ready, like the purple and pink sky and my Keurig, when I come to the office on Saturday. That hasn't worked this week.

I'm in a weird kind of place, one I imagine most people my age can identify with. I'm a septuagenarian, thank you very much. I've earned a long word for being as old as I am. I'm happy and grateful for my life. I laugh a lot and I love my family with a depth that there aren't any words long enough to describe. I am blessed in so many ways. 

And yet.

It's not much of a secret, since I talk about it all the time, that I'm a dweller. I don't get over things. It's one of those things you hope will go away with that age I was talking about, but for me it has sharpened. Instead of fading into a gentle Monet landscape, loss and grief and anger stand out like mountains on relief maps. It's only now, in these brittle days since my sister passed away, that I realize I can be grateful and happy and realize my blessings and still dwell on hurt and loss. Still wake every day with the thought that I won't see her again. 

Nancy, my sister, was big on get over it. It was how she got through things, how she survived, how she held onto happy and grateful. She was the eldest of us, however, and she was unprepared for two of our brothers to pass before her. How dared they to go out of order? We laughed when we said that, but she didn't "get over it." She mourned with a depth I didn't fully understand, even though they were my brothers, too. 

She worried about my brother and me who are still here, because she already felt betrayed by the out-of-order thing. Despite the depth of her own grief, I don't think she'd understand that I'm having trouble accepting that she's not sitting at her kitchen table anymore. She'd roll her eyes and remind me that I have everything. 

I do. And I'm grateful, happy, and blessed. But I don't have her. As wonderful as septuagenarianism is--and it truly is--it is pockmarked with those things I talked about. Loss and grief and anger all leave marks, don't they? They add substance to our lives, to who we are, but they hurt. Forever. 

I don't know how to end this, because I am indeed still in this weird place. But maybe writing about it (and making you suffer along with me) has helped. It's reminded me of the pink and purple morning sky, that I had the best sister in the world for over 70 years, and to keep laughing because joy keeps those scars of grief and loss and anger from running together and taking you over. 

I miss you every day, Nance. Love you.

That's it for now. Have a good week. Tell people you love them. Be nice to somebody. 

"The tongue has no bones..." by Liz Flaherty

"The tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words." -Unknown

I have a fondness for words, which probably isn't much of a surprise to anyone. I have, in recent years, come to flinch from the cruelty of some of them. I learned to love being called a snowflake because before it became a universally loved and accepted pejorative term, it meant something beautiful that brought joy. 

I've learned not to resent stupid as much as I used to because I know I'm not. Calling  me that is likely to make me beam and say bless your heart and think of how...er...stupid you sound using words willy-nilly for the simple purpose of hurting someone. I figured this out just recently, when I was called stupid because of my opinion and decried for using good grammar by the same person in the same conversation. 

I was stung a few weeks ago when I read in more than one place that lives and opinions of the elderly had no relevancy. Not only because it shocks me every time I re-realize I am one of the elderly, but because I don't understand why anyone would say such a thing about someone else.

This morning on Facebook--yeah, I know, how did I ever write before Facebook?--I read this, written by Martha Floyd and used with permission. 

Only nine signatures. Today it took only nine signatures to sign my mom up for hospice, but those signatures felt like nine million. Those nine signatures were some of the hardest ones I’ve made. Those nine signatures said No more doctor visits, no more tests, no more needle sticks and no more working toward a goal to get better. Today we ordered the meds to “keep my momma comfortable.” Today the big truck pulled up and dropped off the needed furniture and oxygen. Tomorrow my beautiful momma turns 83. But today I signed her up for hospice. Tomorrow will be a special day just for my momma. But tomorrow will be another day wishing I never had to write those nine signatures. Tomorrow will be a birthday celebration filled with joy, laughter, family, friends…and tears. Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers as we begin this journey together.

I've read those words several times since the first time. I swiped them from social media and sent Martha a message asking if I could use them. She responded in time for me to add them. I imagine she's busy. It's her mom's birthday. Her heart is breaking. I've been there, haven't you?--in that aching, shattered place where loss resides. 

Two families (that I know of) in the community have suffered double bereavements lately, leaving mourners' lives with huge empty spaces. I can't pretend to know how they feel because even in the broken place I just mentioned, grief is far too personal to claim someone else's as your own. But I am so sorry for their losses. For the silences and the emotional bruises that have to heal in their own time if they heal at all.

I started this talking about words. They are to me what music is to some people and art is to others. I've complained--again--about their cruelty when they're used only for the purpose of hurt. I've shared someone else's with admiration for Martha's eloquence. And, like every time I've ever visited a funeral home, I realize that I really don't know what to say. 

Which makes it all the more important that what I say doesn't hurt anyone. No, let me fix that, because the truth is we all say and do things that hurt other people. So maybe what's important is that we don't cause harm and hurt purposefully. Maybe it's recognizing that the old Love Story saying of "Love means never having to say you're sorry" is likely just so much BS. Maybe it's nothing more than remembering that you can't unsay things. 

Have a good week. Be a friend. Be nice to somebody.