“We Are Going To Be Together!”

This morning on the radio, I listened as the staff surprised a mother and her children with Christmas gifts.
Their story:
They lost the father/husband to cancer a while back. If it wasn’t tragic enough that this family had to bury the daddy, their mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Though she fought it valiantly – it began taking over – so the doctors tried new radical treatments as a last ditch effort.
It failed.
This woman had to sit down with her children and inform them that they only had a couple of months together.
This is their last Christmas with their mother.
They will leave Michigan to live in Georgia with their aunt upon her passing, leaving behind everything, the only life they’ve ever known and their mommy and daddy.

I’m bawling.
I’m bawling in the car in a parking lot.
We drive past homes every day of our lives. And we don’t stop to think about the stories being lived behind those front doors.

As I was driving down Telegraph Road last week I noticed a home with a front door painted a soft yellow, and it was so homey and welcoming that I thought, “I think I will paint my door a distinct color like that when I have an actual house.”

But I didn’t think about the people inside or even offer a prayer that God watch over them and keep them.
Why not?
Prayer is effortless.

This Holiday season, I strongly urge you to look outward and away from yourself and material things.
During the parties, during the holiday dinners and gatherings, just ENJOY EACH OTHER.

My twenty-one year old daughter – when she telephoned me to inform me that she and her brother put their dollars together so that she could come home for Christmas – blurted something out in her excitement that stayed with me.

“I don’t even care about presents, Mom! We are going to be together!”

Yes, baby.
“We are going to be together.”