It’s Christmas time.

It’s Christmas time.

You know the time of year. You put up lights, you plan your schedule, you probably start on the interior decorations, and begin the Christmas shopping season in conjunction with the “sales” that happen this time of year.

And then there is the music.

I don’t know what it is, there is something about the music.

Christmas is different for us. 3 years ago, My wife and I suffered an anguishing loss this time of year. On November 29th Our Daughter Keziah was born still – 2 weeks shy of our due date.

Peace on earth good will to men, seemed to become the opposite that year.

And it changed Christmas for us forever.

As a man, a husband, and father. I know what I lost, but I will never understand what my wife lost, she lost something more than the rest of us, she lost someone she spend nearly 9 months with, the rest of us lost the hope of what could have been.

Christmas music.

For us, it is a reason to cry, to sit in the uncomfortable realm of NOT knowing, of NOT understanding, of NOT being in control.

But here is what we know:

We know we lost our Daughter at Christmas. We know that this profound loss, drove us – in an unexplained way, back into each other’s arms. We know that through tragic circumstances we began to change, we began to love each other again. We know that as a husband, I finally got my @%&# together to be the man that God called me to be. We know that Jesus is real, and is the real meaning of Christmas, and that, just because he is real and because we believe in Him, doesn’t mean that we will be spared from all sorts of pain in this life.

We also found out something else.

We found out that the Daughter we now hold at Christmas, our precious little, rambunctious, walking Bubbly, whiney, snotty, lovely, sweet little 1 year old girl Amayah is here and if Keziah had lived, Amayah would have never been.

So, we sit here confused.

Angry yet thankful. Happy on the outside, still awkwardly wrecked on the inside.

Bewildered.

And I am simply reminded. Justin, you are not in control of everything, you are in control of somethings.

It isn’t what happens too you that defines you.

It is how you respond.

slv2all