Pita, Prayers, and Perennials

I am unabashedly and unashamedly a scrapbooker. I chronicle our family’s ups and downs and turnarounds with pictures, mementos, and journaling. Why do I do this? Primarily I scrapbook because of the pure fun of losing track of time in a creative process and for the joy of looking back in retrospection.

Mary held her baby Jesus close to her heart on his birthday. She knew without a doubt how special he was, for hadn’t the angel told her so? I’ve given birth three times: twice to healthy boys, and once to a baby girl who didn’t make it to full term and never got the chance to breathe on her own. However, the baby who best taught me the awe-inspiring lesson about the nature of God’s love was a two and a half pound premature meth addicted newborn abandoned at the emergency room of the hospital where I had been volunteering in the NICU.

Christmas Advent is a time of waiting. I volunteer in our church infant nursery during Sunday School. There’s nothing like nestling with a newborn, their soft fuzzy heads laying just so on your chest, their padded bottoms cupped in your hand, feeling their butterfly breaths tickle your chin. I’ve been privileged to experience with our young families the mixed fearful anticipation and exhilarating excitement waiting together for their Advent newborns.