\u201cMama, come play a game of I Spy?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s evening, and I\u2019ve just returned from the grocery store. The kitchen is overflowing brown bags and boxes. My youngest son, Isaiah, calls from the dining room. My oldest son, Logan, home from college, had taken him Christmas shopping.<\/p>\n
I step over a box brimming with produce and follow Isaiah\u2019s voice. He\u2019s stands near the table, green eyes bright. \u201cI\u2019ll go first and you guess!\u201d he says. He scans the room and his tongue hooks the corner of his mouth. \u201cI see something silver.\u201d<\/p>\n
I look to the buffet. To the cabinet in the corner. To the life-clutter on the table. \u201cThe candleholders,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
Isaiah\u2019s eyes go round, and he dips his blond head toward the piano. After a second, I see there\u2019s a new snow globe on top. It\u2019s silvery and vintage. It\u2019s beautiful. My breath catches and I hold the cool, round globe in an instant.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s to make up for the one,\u201d Isaiah says.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m puzzled. I bend my knees to kneel beside him.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the one I broke last year,\u201d he explains. \u201cLogan helped me buy this one to replace it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logan smiles and nods, and I turn the key on the bottom of the globe. The quiet room goes full with dainty notes. I admire the angel through the glass dome. She holds a wreath under a silver-glitter shower.<\/p>\n
Isaiah loops one arm around my neck and touches my cheek with his other hand. \u201cRemember, how I dropped your snow globe? It broke and the music still played. The sparkly water ran into the gaps in the floor.\u201d His face flushed and his eyes filled with tears. \u201cIt was so, so sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Truth is, until this moment I didn\u2019t remember the shattered snow globe. The brokenness had long been forgotten. But being here, in the dining room, music box singing and silver flakes falling and in precious proximity of tenderhearted boys, I remember, and I begin to understand that this forgetting, this removing of transgressions, is a bit like God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n
You know that he appeared to take away sin, and in him there is no sin.<\/em> (I John 3:5, ESV)<\/p>\n When I trust in Jesus as Savior, my mistakes, my sin, my shame, are long forgotten. When the Lord looks at me, he sees them not. He sees the holy, white, clean, clear righteousness of His own son.<\/p>\n My Redeemer.<\/p>\n My Savior.<\/p>\n Jesus Christ. The amazing gift of Christmas.<\/p>\n My throat suddenly feels tight, and my spirit swells in my chest. My son knows just exactly when to press into my arms. Happiness, the redeemed kind that washes over spirit and soul and fills the heart to the deepest place, becomes mine anew.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d Isaiah asks.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m grateful,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n For the snow globe. But mostly for the love and grace that brings Christmas joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMama, come play a game of I Spy?\u201d It\u2019s evening, and I\u2019ve just returned from the grocery store. The kitchen is overflowing brown bags and boxes. My youngest son, Isaiah, calls from the dining room. My oldest son, Logan, home from college, had taken him Christmas shopping. I step over a box brimming with produce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":28829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[62,80],"ppma_author":[491],"class_list":["post-20318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","tag-blessings","tag-stories-of-hope"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n