A Gift Only God Could Give

I loved Christmas Eve.

I loved seeing the living room set up with pillows and sleeping bags and blankets for excited little boys.  I loved hearing their daddy reading from our Advent book, Bartholomew's Passage, as he laid on the couch.  I loved feeling the warmth of the fire in the woodstove.  

For a full year, I had been looking forward to my night of sleeping on the couch near my boys and the Christmas tree; and, needless to say, I loved actually doing it.  Josiah and David and I were the only ones who made it through the night there.  Tobin tried, but after one too many times of bouncing up out of his cozy nest and bugging his brothers, I took him up to his room about 10:00 p.m; and despite his protests, he quickly went to sleep there.  Jeff fell asleep on our little couch, but also departed part of the way through the night.  But I stayed there, waking occasionally to shift my position on the couch, drink in the sight of my two oldest sons in their youthful peace-drenched sleep, and breathe a prayer of thanks for such moments.

When we woke up this morning--around 7:30 a.m.--a glance out the window showed a most wonderful thing:  it was snowing.  Snow on Christmas morning?  Unbelievable!  It couldn't have been more perfect.  As I rejoiced, I thought, "Only God could have given us this gift."

Sure, a weather forecaster could tell us the scientific reason for the snow arriving this morning.  This high pressure system here...and the low pressure system pushing against it...and the moisture from this storm system...and the winds from the south...blah, blah, blah...  But can a weather forecaster make it snow?  No.  Can you?  Not a chance.  Can I?  No way.

The snow this morning was a gift only God could give.

Almost as soon as that thought entered my mind, I realized that that was exactly what Christmas is all about.  Only God could give a gift like Jesus.  Thank You, God, that You did!

I'm tempted to write more tonight, to share more pictures, to capture in words the moments that made this Christmas so special.  But I can't.  You see, one of the gifts Jeff gave me is The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven; and I started reading it while I was munching on left-overs a while ago.  I could barely pull myself away from it long enough to talk to Jeff, tuck Josiah and David into bed, or do this post.  ;-)  I think it's going to be one of those books--the kind that makes you stay up WAY later than you should, just because you can't bear to set it down for one single second.  If my bedside lamp is still on at 3:00 in the morning, you'll know why.  :)