As humans, I believe we must get so caught up in walking forward (which is a good thing), that because we lack wings we don't soar upward and see the big picture below. I mean think about that for a moment. From the top of a building, you can see the route from the beginning, the present location and where it ends.
I think if most of us were honest, we would lay down our Martha Stewart masks and admit to ourselves and God our Father, that the holidays are difficult for many of us. For me, it is the Ghost of Christmas Past that haunts me. Such good memories of past holidays. People in my life as a child that are no longer with me. I grieve their presence. I grieve our shared laughter. I grieve childhood innocence.
On Thanksgiving Day my husband must have noticed my sense of loss I was feeling because he nonchalantly said, "There may only be 4 chairs at the Thanksgiving Table, but one day, we will not have enough room for all the chairs for our family. Our daughters will have husbands and they will have their own children and grandchildren and they will wheel you in your wheelchair to take your place at the head of the table and you won't even have to worry yourself with the cooking." Wow! Really? Me in a wheelchair? What a perspective and from my quiet husband, nonetheless!
That was a wonderful thought that my own house will praise me because THIS is MY garden where I sow every day. I sow love, patience, laughter and silliness. Why wouldn't I reap the rewards of family? Why wouldn't my home acquire more filled chairs and more shared laughter for the holidays? I had lost perspective. I was merely looking horizontally (forward and backward), thinking in terms of past OR present, not the journey as a whole from a vertical perspective. And you know what? It was a great Thanksgiving. We didn't stress. We didn't stress if we didn't have the traditional perfect Thanksgiving. Sure we had all the items on the list. Yet, we ate Turkey sandwiches instead of sitting around the bird and watching daddy carve it. We decided to save our dressing ingredients for another night later in the week and put the Cherry Pie in the freezer for a special later date to be determined.
Who says I have to have ALL my Happy Holiday Memories right now anyway? I don't want to stuff myself right now anyway because I am saving room for my second portion of happy memories later!
Sitting at the Master's Feet
~Clarissa
