Friday, December 5, 2008

25 Days of CHRISTmas - December 5, 2008

I think I am actually feeling the CHRISTmas spirit. There is something wonderful about looking for the Lord in my day, looking for gifts and blessings from Him. Sometimes I will suddenly be in the midst of experiencing something fun or wonderful, and I think "is this my gift, is this what I am going to want to share about in tonight's post?" Or other days I have come home and set down and reflected on the whole day, I've even had a day I had to choose between blessings to share about the one that blessed me most.

Today was a really good day, but choosing the gift was really easy, deciding how to describe it is the challenge. Should I call it good news? (Not THE Good News, but good news just the same); or should I called it answered prayer or an unexpected blessing? How about the gift of a praise report? Any one of these would be a good description of the gift I got today, but not the description I decided on.

"On the fifth day of CHRISTmas my true Love gave to me... the gift of hope."

I have shared somewhat at length here about the struggles my son Ethan has been having at school. He's had a hard time, with the kids, settling in and especially with his teacher and getting into trouble. Today when I picked him up he told me he was on "happy blue" on his behavior chart; that was the fourth time just this week! I cannot express to you how miraculous that is. When I picked him up, Ethan came running up to tell me and he handed me a note. Actually first he handed me the note, so there was a long concerning moment before he told me about "happy blue"... you know how notes home can be. But when I opened it it said Ethan is getting an award at chapel next week! (Ssshhh... don't tell Ethan, it's a surprise!) When Victoria got her award last month for "respect and kindness" my heart was low because I thought Ethan would never have a shot at getting acknowledged for his fine character. (Even though I believe he has it!)

I have actually been avoiding Ethan's teacher most of the week, I just didn't want to hear any negativity, because it seemed even if she had something good to say there was always a negative counterpart. But when I opened the note she called me over and said she could tell me what it was for. She told me how when she looked at the list of possible awards she got excited when she saw "wisdom" because she knew that fit him.... Did you catch that? She was actually looking for something good about Ethan! I said, "It's been a good week, huh?" and she said "Yeah! It's like he's a different kid." Wow, dare I say it... I don't think he's the only one being different!

This is the first weekend all year long that I'm not dreading Monday. I have hope that maybe... just maybe we've reached a turning point, and yuo know what? Hope is a very good feeling!

Merry CHRISTmas!

1 comment:

Lynn said...

This is my first time visiting your blog and I really enjoyed reading your posts. My boys are older now, but it really brought back memories of all those carpooling trips, the after-school dramas that I think were really just them being able to let go after a day of holding everything together at school. We also went through the new glasses experience. Once our young man got to sixth grade he started with contact lenses. I remember after a high-school sleepover at our house once, being surprised to see a table full of kids in the morning, all wearing their glasses; I had never known they all wore glasses because by then, all were also wearing contact lenses. Anyway, thanks for the trip down memory lane. The years with our kids are hectic but oh so very special :)