The Tree Goes Up And The Lights Still Sparkle!

Here it is ...my third Christmas as a widow aka "single wife." This year so far is much easier on my emotions and there is a twinkle of light in my heart once again replacing the sadness that hung there before. Deciding last night to put up my Christmas tree, I determined to get the 71/2 foot tree up by myself. I dragged it down the steps and actually did get it put together which was an interesting and probably comical feat for a 5 ft 2 grandma! Next I began to bring down boxes of Christmas ornaments from the attic.
Mike and I were married on December 22, 1970 and that first year the ornaments were a few crudely crafted felt ones that I excitedly designed as a starry eyed 19-year-old bride. They were among the first I found last night. Then I found the ones from our second year of marriage...unfinished wooden ornaments that we purchased and painted together. Memories began to flood my heart as I sifted through the thirty-five year collection of ornaments. There were the ornaments from some travels we took...there was my Sante Fe ornament and my North Pole ornament from a Colorado trip. There were many sheep ornaments and many manger ornaments in my hodgepodge of stuff. Oh and among my most treasured in my assortment were two antique rust-topped ornaments that my son found in an old barn at my childhood home in Mississippi a few years ago...they once decked the fresh cut pine trees that my sister and I decorated in our old farm house. There were bicentennial ornaments and homeroom-mother ornaments that I made for my son's class years ago. There were ornaments that friends gave me and ones that my grandchildren gave me. Then there were special ones that my son made as a child and little framed ornaments of pictures of my children and even my grandchildren...those many years of collecting ornaments made for a heavily laden tree and many sweet and precious memories.
As I decorated the tree alone last night and listened to Christmas music, the sadness that flooded my heart the first two Christmases without Mike, truly was greatly lessened. In its place were praise and Thanksgiving to the Lord for the sweet years of blessings that were mine and for the new path of blessing gradually unfolding before me. Yes, I did feel some sadness and yes, I did feel some loneliness and a longing for by gone years...but most of all I enjoyed the vivid memories that each ornament brought forth.
Today as I enjoyed the decorated tree pieced together from my thirty five years of collecting, I knew I wanted my life to reflect the beauty I see in my Christmas tree. I want to treasure special moments and recall them throughout each year and let them adorn my heart just as those ornaments adorn my tree and I want my life to point upward just as my tree does...upwards toward Him!!!
Thank you, Lord, and teach me to live a life of joy, praise, and expectation as I move forward toward that day that I too see Your face and am with You!