This will be our first Thanksgiving and Christmas without our precious Wes. I really felt like Christmas would be the harder holiday for us because Wes LOVED everything about Christmas...the whole package (he loved getting presents more than the average person as this was definitely one of his love languages), but he also loved decorating the tree, loved the years we got a real tree. He would be the first to tell you that Christmas Eve was his absolute favorite day of the year...the anticipation, the togetherness, visiting family, and definitely the food! He loved red velvet cake, loved singing "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" on the way to Thomson every year for Christmas Eve. It is still unbelievable to me that we will not all be together to experience these things this year.
I have been dreading the thought of decorating this year, but I had a little talk with Jesus about my attitude and He redirected my thoughts and feelings about this...so we brought the tree down out of the attic late last night so when Zayne, Wes' son who will be 3 in January woke up this morning, the first thing he saw was a 7.5' tree with lights just waiting for some attention. We spent most of the afternoon decorating the tree and other areas of the house and I am proud to say that Zayne only broke one ornament today - pretty good for a very active 2 year old. You see, Jesus spoke to my heart and whispered to me "Wes would want Zayne to have the same experiences you gave to him for 22 years and it will be a time for you to celebrate ME and a season for you to share with Zayne about ME" so do this in remembrance of Wes and do this in remembrance of ME and I will help you through it. As I was going through our boxes of ornaments, several old Christmas cards were in the bottom of a box and a copy of the poem "My First Christmas in Heaven" happened to be in the stack and through many tears I read it and realized in Heaven, every day for Wes now is Christmas magnified x 1,000,000,000. As much as we will miss having him here with us for Christmas, he is experiencing joy, peace and love to a degree we cannot imagine with our human minds.
The problem I seem to be having right now is with Thanksgiving. I know I should be in a thankful spirit right now, and I still have SO many things to be thankful for, but I just cannot seem to shake this nagging feeling of "ingratitude" in the deep part of my heart because even though I 100% believe God makes no mistakes and was on the throne June 21st when Wes went to be with Him, there is that part of me that says "Why did it have to be this way, Lord?" I know He is the Author of Life and as Psalm 139 says, He knows every day that is ordained for us before one of them came into being...I still wanted Wes longer here on earth than we had him for. I am grateful for the time we had and I know that is a gift...but it is a gift, as a parent, I hadn't finished unwrapping. I wanted to see the fulfillment of the promises I have quoted my whole life like...train up a child in the way of the Lord and when he is old, he will not depart from it. But Lord...we never made it to the "old" part of the verse. I TRUST YOU...I Just Don't Understand Your Ways right now. I am confident in the fact that I will know when I get to Heaven the "whys" and in the meantime...Happy Thanksgiving Wes...and Merry Christmas in Heaven, my sweet son!
