Death's Dark Shadows Put To Flight

Did y'all miss me? It has certainly been an interesting last weeks for me and for that matter and interesting 2008. For the most part it really has not been my best year. For a number of reasons I have really struggled to find even an ounce of the "joy of my salvation." I was chatting with my friend Juls a couple of weeks ago and opining to her about how I was anxious for 2008 to be over and she reminded me to be careful not miss out on what God might do in the last 6 weeks. Well in the past week or so God has really reminded me of what an incredible thing Christmas is. Last weekend we went to 2 Christmas shows that friends were involved in. The folks at Covenant Church did an incredible job putting on Imagine, Christmas and one of the songs we sang was O Come, O Come Emmanuel and during the third verse we sang "Death's dark shadows put to flight" and while I heard the singers and the audience singing it, I also heard it in my heart. I don't know that words can describe it but after the past 2 days I honestly believe that it was God saying to me that this Christmas he was going to put the shadow of death that I have been letting myself live under to flight. And He did that in any number of ways this week but I'd like to share 2 of them. My father-in-law had ask me several weeks ago if I would take him to his dental appointment which was scheduled for yesterday, Friday 12/19. I told him of course I would and that while he was there I would find a coffee shop nearby and work until he was done. Well I found out Thursday night that it was located in the same medical complex that my mom's podiatrist was located. The last time I had been there was January 28, 2009 which was the Monday before she would go into the hospital and not come home again. Mom and I used to have a routine with her appointments where I would drop her off, made sure she got inside and then I would find a nearby coffee shop with wireless access and work until she called that she was done. We would then head back and maybe have lunch or a snack and I would finish out the work day while she read and dozed and we would head home. If I'm honest there was some trepidation about going. But once I got in the car I was completely ok with it. I dropped Steve off and went to the same coffee shop where I used to wait for Mom and the minute I walked in, the owner smiled and said "Hey there, where have you been?" I explained to him that since mom had passed I hadn't been to Hagerstown nearly as much we chatted and caught up and he smiled as he told what a joy his few conversations with Mom had been. Instead of being a day of mourning it turned into a day where I remembered so many wonderful things about my Mother, things that I had lost in the shadows of her dying

Today Muffin and I headed out to get supplies to make Christmas goodies for our friends and I started out with a get in, get it done and get home attitude. Let me tell y'all we went to Wal-Mart on a Saturday and I knew something was up when I got the second parking spot in line folks. While the store was crowded folks were very friendly and we even had funny discussion with a woman about getting recipes online. The cashier, while tired and a little rushed, was friendly and courteous. At another point we were walking through the mall, holding hands and older lady smiles and says "I can tell you're in love." and my reply was "You bet!" We then struck up a conversation with another lady about her late husband and his love for the Dallas Cowboys (Muffin and I were both wearing Cowboys gear.) This afternoon we spent some time with our good friends the Whitacres and thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and time spent with them. God, in his goodness and mercy has definitely put deaths dark shadows to flight this Christmas and I am actually looking forward to celebrating!