T'was the Monday of Heaven Week

I believe I have run out of words - the right words to encourage you to go out and recklessly love those around you; the right words to tell you what we are continuing to face as a family.  I don't have words intricate enough to express my feelings for this week that I dread, the anniversary of Ellie's death. The only thing I can say, is that our wounds are still fresh and our groanings truly are too deep for words.  There has been great beauty though, as the Lord has drawn me to Himself this Advent - hope, newness, providence, and peace in the midst of pain.  

I do have one request: on Ellie's Heaven Day, December 23rd, we would love to see pink balloons released in her honor.  If you are able to do that, please post or send us pictures.  If that isn't possible, please go out of your comfort zone to love on someone you normally would not.  You can post that as well as an encouragement to us, knowing that "reckless love" IS being done this month in honor of EK (we haven't had many posts about it this year).

Since appropriate words escape me this evening, I'd like to leave you with quotes taken from,"The Greatest Gift - Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas", by Ann Voskamp.  Did you know that Advent is a Love Story?  It truly is!  A Love Story for us as Believers, and it all started with this wonderful gift that changed humanity and eternity forever -  the Gift of Jesus Christ, who himself fulfills Love's true meaning.  

I pray that you read these quotes with Christmas, with Advent, with the Gift of Jesus in mind . . . 

"Strange, this familiar Father of prodigals

whose love, too much for one lifetime,

wills that we shall share the 

feast of forgiveness and joy

in the epilogue of eternity."

J.F.Wilson

"He was created of a mother whom He created.  He was carried by hands that He formed.

He cried in the manger in wordless infancy.  

He, the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute".

Saint Augustine

"It was not suddenly and unannounced that Jesus came into the world.  He came

into a world that had been prepared for Him.  The whole Old Testament is the story

of a special preparation . . . 

Only when all was ready, only in the fullness of His time, 

did Jesus come".

Phillips Brooks

"A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes . . . and is completely

dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be

opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent".

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe, more loved

and welcomed than I ever dared to hope".

Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

"Assurance grows by repeated conflict . . . When we have been 

brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again . . . 

and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, 

we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God".

John Newton

"God is coming!  God is coming! All the element we swim in this existence, 

echoes ahead the advent.  God is coming!  Can you feel it"?

Walter Wangerin Jr.

PRAYER:

• Tonight, while getting suitcases out of the attic for our get-away trip this week, Mike fell out of the attic.  He fell backward from the top of the ladder, landing first on his ankle.  It is now swollen to the size of a soft-ball and he is in a lot of pain.  Mike had osteomyelitis in that very ankle when he was a teenager.  His fall busted open that giant scar, but only in a small part of it (no stitches needed).  We aren't sure if we can even make it to our get-away spot, even though it isn't far.  Having things up in the air isn't exactly how we wanted this "peaceful" time to be.

• It's the toughest week of the year for me, which means it has the propensity to be a hard week for the rest of the family.  Praying in specific ways, as the Holy Spirit leads, would be wonderful.  I am weak and have been having grief-sickness (this is something that hit me during Ellie's hospice time and continued on and off until now; it feels like you've been hit by a truck matched with extreme nausea.  I DON'T want it this week.  I want to be happy for My Children.  I want to make it special for them!  

• We desperately want the children to be happy and to feel special, without much sadness at Christmas time.  We want to focus on Jesus' birth and not solely on Ellie Kate's death.  Henry is struggling and we've encountered the above situations to boot.