It happened again this week. I glimpsed my reflection in the mirror – silvering hair braided down my back, creased eyes rimmed by glasses – and thought, I look like my mother. I sound like my mother too. One night, chatting with my daughter, who was visiting from college, I mentioned an article I’d read about the eruption of an Indonesian volcano in the early 1800s.
There’s nothing quite like reading a book about a true event on the anniversary of when it took place. That’s what happened this week as I was reading Janet and Geoff Benge’s biography, Nate Saint: On a Wing and a Prayer, with my family. Here was a Pennsylvania kid who used his love of flying and military aviation experience to serve missionaries living in a remote area of the Amazon rain forest.
It seems wrong to celebrate when the reality for so many this holiday season is grim. A month ago, my husband and I cautioned our children not to expect many gifts for Christmas. Instead, I wanted to set aside the day as a time to enjoy each other and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas. Exactly where that will be, we don’t yet know as we are in the middle of moving.
Wife, mom, writer, friend, sharing God in my everyday life through “Faith Notes.”