The Two Trees: Dogwood and Christmas

The limbs of the dogwood tree meander gracefully outside our kitchen window. In the spring, flowers festoon its branches in clusters like puffs of pink snow. Heidi loved that tree.

And she loved the birds that sang from those branches. Her Nana gave her a birdfeeder one birthday. I hung it under the porch roof, right outside the kitchen’s window. Season after season, Heidi watched the birds in the dogwood tree as they waited their turn at the feeder.

One Sunday morning in January, as she sat confined to the wheelchair necessitated by a stroke, she said, “Mom – look! Look at the pretty bird!”

I glanced at the pile of equipment that overflowed the foyer, waiting to be loaded for the morning service. But a still, small voice said, “Sit. Have breakfast with your daughter.”

So I put the chore off and sat with her a few moments.

Church was glorious that morning. I could sense God’s presence permeating the worship in a sweet way that often eludes the one serving as the worship leader due to the nature of the work. But that morning, His nearness almost overwhelmed me, yet somehow I managed to keep leading and not turn into a voiceless puddle. The afterglow stayed with me the whole day.

After lunch, I asked Heidi if she wanted to take a nap or help me takedown the Christmas tree. Twelfth Night had passed, and now for our family Christmas was over. Normally Heidi would jump at the chance to help with the tree. Long-term radiation damage had become increasingly compromised her ability to do much with the ornaments. Still, she found a way to cradle one between her paralyzed left hand and her body, and use the functioning right hand to deal with the hook. Her chatter made for good company, and we both looked forward to these times together.

So I asked her, fully expecting her to opt for the tree. But she looked at me a long moment. Time seemed to suspend. Then she said, “Mom? I’m tired, now. I would like to go to sleep.”

Those were the last words I ever heard her speak…

The Happy Cardinal

I put off dealing with stonecutters. I just could not find what I wanted. I knew what I wanted: a

 cardinal, some dogwood blossoms and a cross, but I could not find a pattern that included those and I liked.

Especially for the cardinal. All the cardinals any of the stonecutters had to offer were either grim or prim. Not Heidi type cardinals at all. Even in the worst of times, she was never grim. And the only time you would get prim from her is if you crossed her sense of morality in just the wrong way. Then she would drag her head up and away from you with a, “Hmmmff…” and sashay off.

And stiff. All those cardinals were so stiff. I wanted a happy cardinal. One filled with joy because he had finally landed home.

So, in fits and starts, I drew one.

If you look closely, you will see he is smiling.

The stonecutter was excited when I handed him my home-drawn bird. He loved its joy and the movement, and said, “I can tell you what. I will certainly be using this again!”

I felt a little disheartened as I had drawn it for Heidi and liked the idea it would be unique, but also took joy in knowing my attempt would bring comfort to other families.

Dusty Pictures: Heidi Elizabeth Kashtock

Dusty Pictures

verse 1:

I dusted your picture today

and I remember

when life was full of promise

and the dreams we had

were something yet to be known

I look at you, your picture

with eyes of brown

a heart of gold and I remember,

I remember…

Chorus:

Oh, where did the time go

the child go

when did she leave?

I want to know

what happened

how did it happen

is it real?

Verse 2:

I reach out to hold you but all

I hold is a picture

your picture with the smile

that always warmed my heart

Must it be that I will never

see your eyes again sparkle

the way that they sparkled

in the sunlight? and I remember,

I remember…

Chorus:

Oh, where did the time go

the child go

when did she leave?

I want to know

what happened

how did it happen

is it real?

Bridge:

And I’m left here

askin’ all the questions

never hearing the answers

never hearing your laughter…

only the falling of dust

onto the rug

Chorus:

Oh, why did she go

must it be so

I will never…

I’ll never know

what happened

how it happened…

what might have been…

Patricia Hammell Kashtock 

Gone Fishing

Father's Day. Right before the Father's Day sermon this year, Mike and our middle child, Justin sang a song called "My Old Man" by David Mallet. I created a power point presentation with pictures of the fathers in the congregation and when possible, their fathers. When it came to the line about going fishing once a year, I couldn't resist. I used this picture of my Grandfather, our son Justin now grown, and Heidi. He taught both of them as much about fishing as he could during our stay that year. Grandpa was not well, and we had traveled to Florida to see him. Heidi was worried about him and it shows in this picture.

I did not realize how it would get to me. My Grandpa -- long dead. My father died. And of course, Heidi.

But there really is no of course about that. At least not here in the US. And maybe never.

Today I read in the Post about a nine-year-old Afghani girl who was hit by a Taliban bomb. Only perhaps the story is more about her father. In a part of the world that seems to value boys above girls, he cradled the shattered body of his daughter and ran to the American base for help. While the medics searched for signs of life, the father stooped down out side. Burying his face in his hands, he prayed for his little girl as the rain poured down to wash her blood from his tunic. It did not matter that some see girls as having less value. When the medic told him Akhtarbabi had died, his father's heart also shattered.

Even in a place torn by war and bombs, parents do not expect their children to die before them.

Diary of a Cancer Ward 5/29/85: The Existential Rollercoaster

Wed. 5/29/85  

Pat’s Journal begins

We escaped to the hospital cafeteria to find some breathing space. Our pastor, Grant suggested that I start keeping a journal. He said, “If you do, you’ll never regret it.”

Well, we’ll see.

I just wish it had occurred to me sooner – too many things have happened in the last three months to be able to get it all down on paper. I can’t even begin to remember half of it. Too much “stuff!” Waaay too much.

We struggle daily with a baseline of medical crises, hospital stays, and terror. It is more than we can handle. Yet still, I can’t understand this roller coaster of hope and despair we live on, clamped tight inside the flimsy cars against our wills. One moment we are climbing. The way up is slow and labored, but the cars creak their way towards the top where the sunlight shimmers and dances. The next moment we catapult straight down into the darkness leaving our souls back at the top where the sunshine lives.

This morning I stood at the old white Norge with its chipped navy trim and tried to cook breakfast and cried, knowing we might lose her. That thought echoed through our Pullman kitchen and turned around to pound me as the coaster took yet another downward plunge into the dark tunnel that seems to have no end.

I feel so tired all of the time – well, maybe I have a good hour here or there that I’m not, but that’s rare. And I just can’t seem to stop the mindless eating, either. It’s hard, so hard to become motivated to do anything. The physical aspects of Heidi’s care drain away most of my energy.

Otherwise, I seem to spend a lot of time just sitting and talking with her. She cannot follow me around the house in her usual way, chattering like a little squirrel, nor is she able to go to school, or even play with her friends. She is such a social bug, and now both of those options have been cut off to her. That leaves only me, and I feel completely insufficient...and tired. So tired. Too tired to be any fun. Too tired to be social. So often, I simply feel drained of anything to say.

But an eerie and unwelcome quiet has pervaded much of this past week. At first, Heidi had so little reaction to the radiation that I fully expected her to breeze right through it. That has not held true and some unsettling changes have overtaken her. Perhaps we only need to hunker down and wait out the side effects until they dissipate back into nothingness.

Heidi became toxic to the Vincristin and cannot open her eyes even a slit, And for some reason, her eye tracking has gone wild. When we hold open her eyelids so she can see, her eyes cross and wander in every direction completely independently of each other. Before all this began, I didn’t know human eyes could act that way – they look more like eyes belonging to an iguana than to a little girl...sort of like right after her craniotomy all over again. But that time, her wild eyes were due to severe but expected brain trauma following such a major brain surgery. This time – there has to be a reason, of course, but we can’t think of anything that should be causing this.

Well, anything good, that is.

Then last Wednesday she started sleeping around the clock. We’ve had to push fluids – she just doesn’t want to wake up long enough to either eat or drink. I can’t believe how painfully thin she has become. The bones in her face have begun to jut out, pushing against the skin until it turns yellow at their sharp points, instead of pink. Her collarbone looks like it will break straight through if we merely brush against it. If the skin on her head and face weren’t so “sunburned” and darkened from the radiation, I suspect it would look almost completely transparent, but as it is, it appears to be some foreign color pasted over pasty blue-white. Sigh. Frighteningly like a incompetent mortician’s attempt to pretty up a cadaver with all its blood let.

We are not always doing too well with this. The first time Michael saw me try to force Heidi to wake up long enough to drink something he started to yell like I have never heard him yell before. “Would you just leave her be!” he bellowed. His face burned red-hot.

Suddenly, he raised his foot and stomped the ground towards me. “If she wants to eat; she’ll eat! If she wants to drink, she’ll drink! Stop pushing her all the time! Push, push, push! Leave her alone! Just let her sleep if she wants to, will you!”

“Look!” I wondered which countertop his brain had fallen off. “She’s not drinking anything! N-O-T-H-I-N-G. NADA! Not one drop. She has to drink! Without fluids, her kidneys will shut down and she will die! It’s not a matter of, ‘Well, gee Heidi, I think it would really be nicer if you drank more...’ I’m telling you – she’s not eating or drinking anything and it is only a matter of time before she dies!”

He stood in the doorway, frozen. Slowly red glare melted out of his eyes, leaving nothing but hollow brown. Then with eyes cast down, he drew away...

...and said not a word.

Well – he’s not with her all day so he just doesn’t know. She has been a little better the last couple of days, even coming out into the living room on her own. I’m afraid I’m just not very patient at times. Or very nice. It’s just that this fear keeps squeezing my stomach... and it is hard to step back and not freak out.

A few days ago, before her eyes shut down, Heidi said something that floored me. She sat in the tub while I tried to help her get washed up. We weren’t talking about anything in particular, at the time. Actually – I don’t think we were even talking. We were just sort of hanging out and not really focused on anything. The whiteness of the tile and the tub seemed to be the only thing in existence while the rest of life faded into a merciful blur.

Suddenly she looked straight up at me, and without blinking even once she stated, “Mom, I know that the Lord is going to make me better.”

Just like that. Right out of the blue.

I was too stunned to say a thing. The flat out way she said it was as if God Himself had hand delivered that message to her.

I only hope that He has. I only hope, He has...

Hope.

Some days it is so hard to hold onto hope.

Return of The Cosmic Commander

Of the thousands of people I have met over the course of a life time, Heidi may have been the most intent, stubborn, and determined one of all. Just didn’t trust us, those awful forgetful parents of hers! Mind you, she would NEVER forget something so all-important as setting a clock for the morning.

But we did.

The poor thing was frantic the next morning racing through the house, pulling/throwing clothes out of the dresser, shoes every which way, book bag loaded. She barely had time to swallow a banana-eggnog for breakfast before she ran yelling all the way down the hill to the bus-stop.

Obviously, her parents were cut of an inferior cloth. Poor child. She had to take it on herself to run the place because we were SO incompetent! Oh – how we giggled that night! The Cosmic Commander had returned... and with a vengeance. All of it focused for the moment on one wind-up Snoopy alarm clock.

CLICK. BRRRRRIIINNNGGGGG!

“Heidi – cut it out! We’ll set your clock! Promise. We won’t forget.”

Didn’t matter. CLICK. BRRRRRIIINNNGGGGG. Over and over that night until we thought it would never end. My, she was determined. Apparently she determined to stay awake long enough, because when we did go in later, the clock was set. Same thing happened the next night, only she was so tired by then she could not outl

ast that pesky clock.

A confident child? Oh, yes. Her preschool teacher at the Learning Tree, Sue Wakefield, administered a number of tests near the end of the year to gauge readiness for Kindergarten and so on. She sat across the table from us as we talked.

Without looking at us, she fixed her eyes on the pile of papers in front of her and picked them up. She turned them to one side, tapped them down, then turned them to the other side and tapped them down again. Her eyebrows pulled together as she continued to stare. She took a deep breath and held it a moment. Then let it out.

“Well,” she said, words short and clipped. “I never thought I would say this about a child, but...” The words stopped a moment. “...Heidi has almost too much self-confidence!”

And Heidi actually believed she could do anything she set her mind to, although we never said such a thing to her, realists that we were. And more so, she seemed to often believe she truly knew better than anyone else. The problem of course, was with us. We just “did not get it” at times. To her head tossing frustration, sometimes her logic simply eluded us.

How Do You Tell Your Child She Is Going to Die?

Slowly the doctor enters the claustrophobic examining room. After sending Hiedi scampering off with a nurse, he turns to me. “I’m afraid there is a tumor,” he said, and a raging ocean washes my world away.

Because I know her so well, I imagine the scene in the other room where Heidi sits upon a hospital bed. That morning, she had dressed herself in a multi-splendored outfit taking time with each detail, laughing giddily. As usual, she had grabbed a small bit of her world with two-fisted joy, so the colors she wears are in every direction and she is all be-dangled with bracelets and charms.

As I walk towards that room barely putting one foot in front of the other, I know the contrast she makes against the stark walls. Her sun-streaked hair is tied with ribbons and bows; the curls spring with their own life. In the manner of all children, her feet swing alternately, thumping against the side of the bed, clanking against the lowered metal railing. The whole thing shimmies into the wall making dull thuds each time it hits. Her small body also moves in rhythmic motion. Thump, thump, I wanna go home... wanna go home. Thump, thump, I wanna go to school... wanna go to school. Thump, thump, giggle.

In her mind’s eye, Heidi can see the world spinning in a pinwheel’s blur of colors just like the times she turned cartwheels in the front yard, over and over and over again, sunlight whirling with blue sky swirling into green grass, then sun again. High, high. Wanna go so high. Over, over, heels over head. Stick that landing. Perfect!

Thump, thump. Where’s my Mommy? Wanna go home... I’m bored! Ouch! This headache. I wish’d go away!

Her head lifts up as she hears the door open. There’s my Mommy! She’s so pretty. She looks so pretty... she looks... pretty sad. I can make her laugh. And her bright eyes dance in the overhead light, headache forgotten.

In slow motion, I approach the gurney and gently take her hand. Kneeling in front of her on the cold hospital floor, I start to speak. In my ears, my voice sounds far away as if it came from the end of a long tunnel. Hollow. So hollow. The words echo around the room and come back to crush me.

“Heidi, honey...” I hesitate as the words refuse to come out.

Heidi looks at me, puzzled. Why is Mommy doing that? her eyes say. And she wrinkles up her nose.

The words choke so hard I can barely whisper.  “I...I’m afraid... they’ve... they... have...

"They’ve found a tumor.”

“NO – Mommy! NO! I don’t want to die! NOT LIKE YOUR MOMMY! NO-NO-NO-NO-NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Heidi flings her body violently against my arms as I try to restrain her.

Suddenly she wrenches loose and throws herself onto the cot and sobs in a heap. The roar of the heating unit threatens to consume her.

Slowly, my voice breaks through the deafening roar surging from her mouth. From under the ocean depths it rises, muffled by the water's weight. “Oh, sweetheart, love – that was so long ago. They’ve come so far in twenty years! The doctors have learned so much since then. It’s better now. I promise. Back then there was no hope.”

And precious little hope still, but I did not know this yet.

Innocent eyes look up at me for a moment. Then she buries her face back in the mattress. Little by little, her sobs turn to shudders. Finally her body quiets, and the shivering stops. She turns her face sideways on the mattress so that she can see, her cheek and nose bright red from where she had slammed them into the bed. One eye peers at me.

Then, “Okay, Mommy...” And she sighs. “I believe you.” Slowly, she pushes her hands under her shoulders and sits up. “Can we go home, now?”

I take a deep breath. “Sweetheart – not just yet. They are going to admit you today.”

The sniffles never grow any louder and she nods okay. The sparkle does not reenter her eyes and now they look out of place with her cheerful array.

But stuffed deep inside a restless quiet stirs. “Home, home. I wanna go home,” she chants in that place one more time. “But I can’t go home, not now,” and wants to cry. She takes a deep breath and carefully lets it out. Then she smiles a tentative smile through the tearstains.

Christmas 2004 – And then there were four

Dearest Family and Friends,

Thank you for all that you have been to us this past year, for all the support you have given to us. Sometimes it has been through ways large and obvious and sometimes in ways hidden enough that you might not even have recognized it as support, but in each act, we have felt your kindness pour healing into our lives. Facing this first Christmas without Heidi has been difficult. While out shopping for gifts some little thing will catch my eye and I’ll move towards it thinking, “Oh, Heidi would love that!”

Then I remember... and pray for the grace not to cry.

As I sit out here, in the woods behind our house, I am amazed at how bright and clear this day has dawned. In our part of Virginia grey clouds often obscure December skies. But today the sky holds the intense blue of the long gone summer days of my childhood, only this is not summer and the crisp cold wind both cuts through my coat and exhilarates. I would have thought its fierceness would send the songbirds into hiding, but I watch them wing straight through the gusts, singing for all they are worth.

I wish it were as easy for us humans to wing so above the winds.

Still, like the songbirds, I find I sing. Although the sorrow of loss may come crushing in and turn the notes to more of a minor key, I sing.

Some days that song may be quieter or less frequent than in years past, but it is not silenced. Always it waits there at the turn of a corner, at the end of a tear. I am not sure if the song is joy or if it is hope, but I have found both can live in a heart along with the deepest of sorrow. All three co-mingle until it becomes impossible to tell where one ends and another begins.

I thank the Lord that for our final Christmas with Heidi He gave us a particularly special time with our larger family. And when fatigue nearly overtook me and I considered not having our Twelfth Night dinner and communion, He prompted me to go ahead with it. Heidi always enjoyed this celebration. I would have been saddened if she missed out on one last time.

And I am forever grateful, that even in death, the Lord protected Heidi.

Just a mere half week after our Twelfth Night celebration and after an especially lovely time of worship in church, I asked Heidi if she would like to help me take down the tree or would she rather take a nap. Christmas was over for our household and Heidi was the only one who would try to help me with the decorations. Yet although always helpful, Heidi said, “I’m tired, Mom. I would like to go to sleep now.”

And while she slept, she slipped quietly into unconsciousness.

God’s mercy in action. It was nobody’s fault. No one lost a hold of her while they were walking her. It was not a medication error. She did not try to stand when my back was turned, and fall.

And more than all this, the relief to my mother’s heart is that she never had a chance to be afraid.

Three days later, while we stood at her bedside, she found her wings and took flight. Now like the cardinals we both loved to watch from our kitchen window, she flies high above the winds with their biting cold: her mouth full of song and her heart full of joy.

Heidi is no longer bound by a wheelchair; no longer bound by loneliness and desires that could never be fulfilled.

Instead, she dances with freedom in the presence of the almighty King whose name is Love. And she wears the beautiful gown all covered with jewels that many years ago one man had dreamed about. He had not known what the dream meant, but I did. The white ball room gown symbolized Heidi someday dancing in the presence of God, and the jewels were His promise to her, and to me as her mother, that all her suffering would not be wasted and that He saw her steadfastness and faithfulness in that suffering, and He would reward her when that day came.

One of the miracles that happened in Heidi’s long journey was that at her death, she was cancer free. The child who had been given a death sentence through a highly malignant, inoperable, incurable brain tumor had grown into a young woman who was able to serve one last time: as an organ donor. Through Heidi’s final gift, three men’s lives were spared and they were returned to their waiting families.

Our prayer for you this year is that you will know fully the One who came, and that in His presence you will find peace and joy, and a deep abiding sense of wonder. No matter what happens or how hard life becomes or what sorrows it may bring, we pray that you will know that He loves you and that He is faithful. He will be with you always and hold you close to His heart if you but ask Him to, for He is the One whose name is Love.

Merry Christmas – with all our love,

Patty, Michael, and Galen Christopher Kashtock

Dancing Feet (from the Upper Room)

 

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Dancing Feet

Read Psalm 34:1-18

[The Lord] will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.

-Isaiah 25:8 (NIV)

TODAY dawns bright and cold, and I think of my daughter who died not long ago. Heidi leapt, jumped, and danced her way through life. The Christmas before her eighth birthday, she performed the whole Nutcracker Suite for us, complete with a paper crown and wearing my too-long nightgown, which tripped her feet. Before her next birthday arrived, doctors found a tumor in her brain. She never danced again.

But the story does not end there. For nearly 19 years, Heidi lived with the cancer. Although she could not dance, she always smiled and said, "I know that when I get to heaven, I will be able to dance."

Now, her new, strong feet move gracefully in the warmth of God's presence. In heaven, my daughter dances with joy again, without fear or pain, in light that will never fade. She is with God who is love and who will not let her go. Her joy will never end.

Patricia Hammell Kashtock (Virginia, USA)

Thank you, God, that even in grief you can remind us of the joy we will have with you forever. Amen.

Those we love are always held within God's love.

Parents whose child has died

| November 17, 2008 | November 18, 2008 | November 19, 2008 |

| Upper Room Home | Devotional Home | Subscribe |
| El Aposento Alto | Non-English Editions |
| E-mail Devotional |

Christmas 2003 –You never know when the last one will be

Dearest Family and Friends,

I sit here at my picnic table in the woods. The wind blows while the leaves drop all around. Squirrels bound up and down making kamikaze leaps, but they never get hurt. I hear a crunching, crunching and know what I will see before I look up from my writing. Three deer, but yards away, slowly approach. The largest stops and stares at me. Her eyes demand, “What are you doing in my woods?” Then haughtily shaking her head, without the least fear she moves on.

Aliveness throbs through every part. The song of creation washes over me and I am full.

This year drifted gently by on the wings of possibilities, on promises of a future that what not yet realized, will come. Deep within, I sense a new hope for each member of our family waiting to take flight.

Heidi has continued to struggle with the aftermath of several strokes. The worst one occurred in January of 2002. It left her in a wheelchair without the use of her left hand. Thankfully, there have not been any more in almost a year.

While this new disability has not been easy for her, it has brought people into her life who give her the joy of companionship and take away the wrenching loneliness. During the day the angel of our family, Martha Gamez, takes care of Heidi’s basic needs and spends a great deal of time talking with her. She makes it possible for Heidi to engage in creative activities like beading that would otherwise happen sporadically. The Lord has blessed our lives with her thoughtfulness and joy.

Also this year, He brought kindhearted Pat, a volunteer for Brain Injury Services, to take Heidi out into the community to do those fun things like movies and crafts that Mom so rarely gets around to.

Justin became engaged to Hillary, a young woman that we have grown quite fond of this year. He has overcome some hard times from the previous year and grown into young manhood, living on his own and supporting himself. Lately he has experimented with ideas to broaden the business where he works. Time will tell where he ends up, but he has a lifetime of possibilities in front of him. Sometimes it seems we see and talk with him more than that last year he lived here and we have enjoyed his company immensely.

Galen has continued to move forward. He is a high school Junior who plays the cello well and is trying Lacrosse again this year after a nasty case of mono tanked last year’s season. He got his driver’s license this week. Although he has driven responsibly to date, I’m still terrified. Thankfully, Virginia requires lengthy hours spent behind the wheel with one’s parents riding shotgun. This has given us something we can do together and served as an overdue bridge builder. As a result he has integrated more firmly into the family has really stepped into a role of a very helpful young, “almost adult,” and has been a pleasure to be around.

Mike and I have also managed to “come through to the other side” regarding a number of distressing situations that we had to face in the preceding years. At times, except for the Lord’s nearness, each other, and many of you who we are sending this note to, the darkness pressed in so that I found it hard to breathe.

But the Lord made me a promise that it all would be, “like a dream, like a vision that passes in the night,” and “they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.” And indeed, it has been like a dream in which one has no control, and in which things go from bad to worse with no one to intervene.

Then suddenly, you wake up.

And sitting up, you realize how horrible it was. For a moment, you can still feel the pain and the terror, but then the early morning birdcalls come through the window and the first glimmerings of the sun poke through the shades in a way you can almost feel their warmth on your face.

And the fear vanishes like the mist.

Life is not so different, for this I am grateful. I am finding anew that as I walk with my hand tucked into the hand of the Creator, that while I am not protected from the searing pain that life too often has to offer, He begins ever so slowly, to shape my responses to that pain.

From that pain, He crafts the “treasures of darkness.” In the deepest darkness of the earth where the pressure is the greatest, He forms the most beautiful of jewels. We are each beautiful in His eyes and a jewel to be crafted, if we will but allow Him to do so.

One of the treasures that came out of our troubles has been the deepening of the true friendships we have with many of you. Another has been the deepening of family ties, both immediate and extended, and the forging of some new and precious relationships.

An unexpected treasure forged from the darkness has been the joy and excitement of leading worship in a mission church. For many months crazy thoughts about leading worship in a “mission church” somewhere plagued me. Finally I realized that maybe the Lord really was calling me to a new direction. I thought the thoughts were crazy this just was not something I would normally have any desire whatsoever to do.

But that changed, and to my surprise, I find I love it. For the first time, I feel like I have grown wings to fly. And with that freedom, comes the sense that I am newly freed to do more. Most of my life, each goal I have set has been road-blocked and stopped cold, and outside of loving relationships with family and friends, I began to feel that I could never achieve anything.

But that is changing. It is really changing. God in His mercy is not done with us at the time in our lives when the world is saying we are phasing out. Again and again, I have seen that even as people age, He still has new things for them to learn, new adventures for each to begin.

So, I invite you out onto this precipice, where the wind blows fierce and the air is crisp and cold, and like diamonds in the rough, the sun’s rays fall all around.

This is the place where if one trusts in the love and ultimate goodness of God, all things are possible in His grace.

From this very precipice one night long ago, the One by whom and with whom and for whom all things were made, stepped off and down into time.

From the vast halls of eternity, He stepped down into the confines of flesh. The Creator became the created to be with those He loves. He, who knew no need outside of time, became a helplessly needy infant, completely dependent on the goodwill of others.

And not all others bore Him peace and good will.

Instead, from the moment of His very birth, they would seek to kill Him, but God would protect Him until the time was right. And then – although this baby grown to a man would suffer – the Lord would raise Him to glorious victory.

As His glory shines all about us in the form of that star in the night so long ago, we pray that He would fill you with the glory of His light in this year to come.

Merry, merry Christmas!

With all our love,

Patty, Michael, Heidi and Galen Christopher