Infertility at Christmas

I just want to go Christmas shopping to purchase gifts for our nonexistent child. My love language is gifts.  I love giving gifts.

Tonight we gathered with our large in quantity extended family to celebrate Christmas. We watched as everyone else opened gifts.  It was quite depressing for the two of us.  The generation ahead of us exchanges gifts with each other.  The generation below us receive gifts from several people.  Our generation exchanges gifts, except those assigned to us in the name exchange live out of town.

Gift giving/receiving is my love language.

I shopped for gifts for some of the kids in our church.  It was nice.  But I didn't allow myself to dream about the gifts we would purchase our kids if we had them.  I had to turn off my emotions to some degree in order to shop.

This is a difficult Christmas.  God has been gracious in providing others to lead worship.  This morning I had a break through for the message for Christmas Eve.  The focus is going to be on the light - significance of light in the Christmas story.

I realized this evening, that even with this sermon topic, I am still avoiding the baby in the manger.

I can celebrate Christ with us.  And I rejoice in that!

But, to focus on the baby.  That is hard.

Tonight my uncle gave me a knowing hug and I showed no emotion.  But then as I drove home I felt the emotion.

I have so much to be grateful for and I am so very much blessed!  My husband and I shared a fun adventure this afternoon that was truly an unexpected gift to both of us!

I know God is gracious and with us.  And I trust God's wisdom.  I know He knows what is best!  And I believe he wants for us to have the best.  Right now, that does not include a child.

And so this Christmas is difficult.

There are gifts sitting in my home that I purchased several years ago to give my parents at Christmas to tell them the good news that we are expecting.  They remain unopened and ungiven.

Did I tell you that my love language is gifts?

So Christmas is an especially difficult time - focus is on children and gifts.  Jesus is alive every day!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They touched Jesus, but then, how did they pray?

I'm sitting in my room praying and thinking, "After the resurrection did the disciples pray to Jesus?" Just imagine this with me for a moment. You have spent the past 2 - 3 years of your life following this intriguing man around, your feet are calloused, your memory is overflowing with moments around the campfire or dinner table, and you've been challenged to completely shift your Jewish worldview. And then he is gone. Just as quick as he came, just as brief as the moment he walked the shoreline past your fishing boat and called out to you, he is gone. And you are left knowing you've met an incredible man who was more than a man -- a man who was somehow divine. Now there is no one around you analyzing deep fulfilled Christological theological concepts, but there are plenty of Greek voices and new philosophical ways of contemplating life's happenings, there are Jewish commentaries, and there are the conversations that have happened along the roadside. An...
Read more

Palm Sunday School Lesson for Teenagers

Scripture: Luke 22:17-20 Topic: When Jesus ate with his Disciples Background: This lesson would be taught during a Sunday morning breakfast club for teenagers. Once a month the youth meet to cook breakfast and then we try to relate the lesson to food. Last time the Middle School breakfast club met a middle school student led his peers in a devotional that went through the various stories of Jesus sharing food with his disciples. This Sunday we are going to focus on one of those stories and how it relates to Easter. Opening: 1. Ask, “Have you ever helped plan a party?” a. Ask the students to share about the various things they did to prepare (send invites, decorate, blow up balloons, set the table, plan games, order food). 2. Say, “For some families, Easter is a time of celebration, a party of sorts.” a. Ask, “What does your family do to celebrate Easter?” (family gets together, we eat dinner together, Easter egg hunt, attend church se...
Read more

Sabbath

Genesis 2:2-4 (The Message) 2-4 By the seventh day God had finished his work. On the seventh day he rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day. He made it a Holy Day Because on that day he rested from his work, all the creating God had done. This is the story of how it all started, of Heaven and Earth when they were created. If God the greatest worker rested, why don't we?
Read more