When the hour struck midnight, Gordon and I, kissed each other Happy Christmas. All was so quiet around our little abode. Then, quite unplanned, we got into a run-away conversation about the circumstances around the last Christmas with Michael: the fevers, the knowledge that there would not be another earthly Christmas for him – how the oncologist broke the news – no last straw grab. We looked back, and chatted to deep in the first hours of Christmas night and stood in amazement again at how our strong God carried Michael, carried us the parents, the siblings, family and friends to stand by the Michael we loved to bits.
This Christmas morning was………..
- Unlike some other years when we were woken up by “It snowed!” in Germany, or to a simmering sunny day in South Africa,
- Unlike our last Christmas with our son, Michael, less than a month before he died physically.
- Unlike like the Christmases we leapt out of bed to get the last touches of big Christmas meals with many.
- Unlike the Christmases when our three little children were awake long before we were!
- This is our first Christmas after Gordon’s retirement in June 2012.
- This is our first Christmas in Edinburgh after 12 years near London.
So it is the two of us at home: my true love, who should have been in a medicine career, brings me tablets and liquids to go with the chocolates our neighbours kindly brought us.
Our original plan to spend a good chunk of Christmas day with our far-away family is materialising,
What an uplifting Carols at Candlelight at Charlotte Chapel on Sunday evening! And then those after-chats, for example: Irene, who read Mary’s song was struck by “all generations will call her blessed”. The question was along these lines:Do Protestants not call Mary blessed, because the Roman Catholics call her “blessed” for many an extra man-made reason?
Here are Mary’s own reasons:
- she was not deserving of this honour.
- it was nothing that she earned.
- God has done great things for her.
- and because God’s Name is holy.
