Christmas Letter

I am hesitant to call this a Christmas Letter but as it is the Christmas Season and it is a type of letter that is what I shall call it.


Thus....

My Dear Friends both Virtual and Virtually Forever, as well as Strangers from places around the world that  I only can see through my Stat Counter, I say a Joyous Hello to You All.

This past year has in so many ways been truly  the most absolutely   depressing, devastating, painful, disappointing  and bitterly unrelentingly miserable year. I cannot in my 60 years of living on this Earth ever  recall having such an unending litany of loss and despair as I have had this year.

It seemed that every month there was  either a passing of a friend, news of family strife, an illness to be coped with, some one's loss of husband, wife, or mother, tragic and uncontrollable natural disasters;  along with news that Evil had once again manifested Itself in death and wanton destruction. 

2012-- A very dismal year indeed. An "Annus horribilis" as someone once said.

And now it is Christmas.

 What is there to celebrate?  Why should one literally BUY into all the fuss and faldoral of trees, gifts, food, and glad tidings? What good would it possibly do?  To what end? People playing at "Happy Families". People pretending that they can afford all the money spent on too much food and too many gifts. People deciding that 'because it is Christmas' they will put up with the situation just for now.  People stuffing bad feelings, bad memories, and tolerating bad behavior for the sake of the holidays.

For the past months, I  have truly wallowed in a pity party of hurt pride and petty grudges.  I was angry, terrified, and discouraged at ever being able to be or feel 'right' again.  I dreaded waking up in the morning to face the world, and I dreaded sleeping too much for fear of dreaming beautiful outcomes only to awaken to reality.

Christmas...Bah Humbug would have been the polite terminology used to describe the language of the on-going conversation I had with myself in my mind and to most people in the world who made the mistake of asking how I was doing.  I saw Christmas as something yet again to get through. Another way to remind me that  everyone else is happier, healthier, more deserving,  more blessed,  and more loved, as well as  richer (and thus smarter), kinder, and  ultimtely better off.

As I revelled in my miserably magnificent misery I asked myself:

Is Christmas an arbitrary day to celebrate a birth of Someone that so many turn their back on as soon as the tree is down , the presents are opened and the bills arrive? Yes.

Is it full of sadness, strife, worry , and more often an occasion of loneliness for the poor and forgotten? Yes.

Is it a time of endless reminder that Peace has not yet arrived, Joy is not for All, and still another year has come and gone and Nothing has Really Changed? Yes.
  
What happened then?

 Well in Hoffmanville they say..that this old lady's heart may have grown in some way.

  It perhaps was because of what the doctor did say...

...but I think perhaps it was the Hoar Frost display.

 It was a most lovely and most beauteous  cross country trip  full of God's unique and unmatched artwork in the form of copious amounts of hoar frost on trees, grasses, and fences that I think caused this heart of stone to beat once more.   A  vista of nature's  pristine lace passed by my vision for  over 2 hours from horizon to horizon as we travelled to the city. It is something that I  will only  describe as a Gift and  not a mere 'accident' of Nature. It was  that that  I believe slowly softened  a heart that  had indeed become 'three sizes too small'.  

No...nothing has really changed--

--except for me-- 'something' has.

 For now anyways. 

 There are still issues, still worries, still conflicts, and a certain part of life that isn't quite right...but along with all that there is something 'a little bit more'.  

Maybe Christmas doesn't mean  that 'right now ' all has to be right. After all even He had to wait 30+ years to show us why He was here.

Maybe it just means that we only have to keep Him on our horizon.
 The beauty of the frost filled landscape  on  a Winter's Day was my own reminder that Much is well and Much will be made well again-- in some way; perhaps, and more probably, with as much mystery and beauty as are the crystals of hoar frost layered with care and marked precision by the hand of a Master over and over again on each minute  needle of a whole and complete 20' Pine tree.

 I hope  all your lives will be touched by the same Creator  of the beauty  displayed before me that cold northern winter's day, not just during the Christmas Season but throughout the coming year. 


Best Wishes for Joy, Peace, and Comfort for 2013.

p.

   Hoar Frost Crystals

... surprisingly not unlike 'thorns'.

P.S.

The only Guest needed for Christmas has already arrived.
The only Gift needed to be purchased has already been given.