Christmas Newsletter 2012

Truthfully, it is Thanksgiving week and not yet the Advent Season.

However, since Jesus Christ is alive, has come {Advent} and remains with us {Emmanuel} and most assuredly is my Lord, { Savior} and gives me daily purpose {Father GOD Almighty}, then to write my annual Christmas newsletter is timely whenever I send it. J

 What a magnificent year 2012 has become, as I excitedly claim my 12^th grandchild and realize afresh the frailty of life and the importance of Knowing God before you Need God!

 With the Facebook phenomenon as the tip of the technologically overloaded iceberg,  some would say my life is an open book and what more is there to say in the newsletter?  I decided long ago to document my years by reviewing the Lord’s mercies to me each Christmas, so this is my written status update J for 2012.

 

Theodore Ribeiro Elsenheimer, on June 22, 2012 rocked our world with his timely, terrifying arrival. Interestingly, summer solstice was June 21, and it is supposedly the longest day of the year. I am going to challenge that date this year, however, and say that Teddy’s birth day was by far hours longer for any of us involved in his story! Did you see that I call him Teddy? His mom and dad [Rachel and Aric} call him Theodore, or Theo, and within the family there are several versions of his name. No matter what WE call him, I will always know he was called by God to give us joy unspeakable as he struggled through his first weeks of life. Joy because God answered our heart cries, and unspeakable because there will never be words to contain the emotions that kept us on our knees before God’s mighty throne of grace.

My summer trip to New Mexico was so filled with all things Teddy that I almost forgot to mention I returned from there on a mother/daughter road trip with My mom!  We saw lots of country as we drove back to Tennessee, via the Texas Panhandle and states that were so monotonous I felt sorry for the Wagon Trains of years gone by! Mom and I had a good time together and even though I never saw a Rattlesnake, I did watch a skinny coyote slink away into the cactus, and THAT was worth the trip! J  I am going again, I hope, but first checking with Guy Fieri on HGTV Diners and Drive Ins to see where we should eat.

 Admittedly, I have a poor memory, so just to be certain that I did not forget a major life event I checked my date book. There were dates marked, mostly family and friends surgeries and births, an occasional crisis, all things to pray for and about.  Grandson Ethan has a habit of writing his name in my datebook when he visits, so there were lots of ETHAN scribbles scattered throughout.

 It would appear that an entire year raced by and sweet baby Teddy claims the place of MOST IMPORTANT event in my world! He joins the ranks of an 11 year old Eliot, 10 year old Simon, 9 year old Jesse, 7 year old Nora, 6 year olds Isabel, Ava, Ethan, Bianca, Aidan and Evelyn, and formerly the baby grandson… Luke. How blessed is my world- an amazing gift!

 

 

 The beauty of gifts is that they are undeserved, unexpected, not linked at all to deeds or actions or personality characteristics, good or bad. They just are given to us in love by someone who loves us. I thank God so much for loving me , not because of who I am, what I have done, who I am not married to, what my mood is. My gift from Him, first of all in giving me access to the throne of grace~ HIM , by sending Jesus Christ to have experienced what I deserve is almost unspeakable. The gift He has given me of children, and then grandchildren, only shows me how much He indeed loves me, personally and perfectly, and I will thank Him forever for this. I thank Him that I have forever, too, and thus ends this year’s Christmas story from me to you, my dear ones. None of us knows when our story on earth comes to a final chapter, we should make certain that everything is said and done that needs to be.

 Merry Christmas! I love you, no matter that it looks differently for each one, it remains sincere.

 

PS. I think I am getting old, I heard myself call a child ‘sweetie’ last week. L yikes.