This Season

To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiatstes 3:1-8

My students had to memorize and recite poems for class today.  Megan found a website that had a lot of poems with literary merit listed and we gave them the link and asked them to choose from the list.   Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 was on the list, and since it’s fairly easy to memorize (or should have been!) several of my students chose it.  My first period is not honors, so they didn’t have to memorize, but were to attempt a dramatic reading of one of the poems.  When the first student read the verses out loud, this mama’s eye welled up with tears. 

I claimed these verses two years ago when I was weeping, mourning, breaking down, hating my circumstances, processing death.  Christmas two years ago was the worst of my life.  We decorated our house and went through the motions and missed our baby boy like crazy. Last year we had both girls, and although we were so grateful, the stress of sharing Amoura was exhausting, and the events that actually transpired over the holiday cast a shadow on our first Christmas with Layla.

But this year is different.

We spent last night at the Village Park riding the train with Layla, her bestie, Quinn, and her parents Kimberly and Jason. 

The picture says it all: we moms had been waiting far too long to snuggle bundled up babies under the glow of giant trees and fake snow falling.  I kept thinking to myself as we smiled for pictures and encouraged the girls to look at all the pretty lights, “what a difference a year makes.”  Christmas of 2014 was tough for Jason and Kimberly.  They’d gone through three failed adoptions and still had empty arms.  Now they have a nine month old, and we get to freak out together over awesome Christmas bibs and “bow of the month” clubs for baby girls. This is our season of “getting” and it feels incredible.

When I warned my students today that I might cry, they wanted an explanation.  How can you NOT cry at the promises in these verses?  Even in my saddest season, I believed that a time to dance was coming.  I knew I would laugh again.  I didn’t know when or what it would look like, but I knew it was coming.  And now that it’s here and it has a name and calls me mama, I am so grateful and humbled and ashamed of myself for not always giving thanks. This Christmas season, may I not forget for one second what a gift I’ve been given, not just in my baby girl, but in the baby boy who was born in a manger and became not just the Savior of the world, but the Savior of a small town English teacher who cries when her students recite poetry.