Christmas Eve Gifts

These past 3 days have been intensely pungent.  But they have not filled with darkness, despair or depression.  You see, tears don't necessarily need to be accompanied by those sort of painful sentiments.  Tears reveal the deepest longings of our souls.  And we have embraced every tear along this entire journey.  But our tears aren't hopeless - they are sacred and beautiful.

Lana spent the night with us at our house on Saturday night.  She had a little slumber party in Benjamin's room.  Sunday morning, the absence of Poppy was palpable.  We did what we always do on Sunday mornings- made fresh coffee and tea, set the table and enjoyed family breakfast together around the lighting of the fourth Advent candle.  I think we had as many tears on our pancakes as we did syrup.  But we nevertheless held hands around our little circle and prayed with thanksgiving and joy.

Sunday afternoon we took Lana to the Colorado Springs Philharmonic Christmas performance at the downtown Pikes Peak Center.  The combination of music and voices and celebration of Jesus was intense and we felt the performance was just to celebrate Poppy.  Handel's Messiah was Pop's favorite, you know.  In fact, we were playing The Messiah in his home during the last precious moments we had with him on Saturday afternoon.  And so as the Hallelujah Chorus began and everyone stood, time stood still.  Everyone in that auditorium stood for Poppy and his faithful life- they just didn't know it.  And I believe that Jesus Himself smiled and stood with us just like he did for Stephen. (Acts 7:55)  It was absolutely beautiful.  And healing for our hearts.

And then we came home and stuffed Christmas cards from the Nursery to all our customers.  Esther came over and helped us and she also gave us all Christmas presents, including the gifts she had for Pop.   Years ago he had written a poem and asked Esther to create an original painting to go with the poem.  None of us had seen the poem or the painting until we unwrapped them on Saturday night.  Here is what he had written:

 And here is what Esther painted for Poppy:

Original painting by Esther Langley, 2013

Most of you know about Pop's mission to keep our pond full of water.  He also had a passion for his Kenyan kids to have clean water.  So this image that Esther has created is an amazingly accurate representation of his heart to bring fresh and Living Water to the world.  Here he is in 2009 in what was the most victorious moment of his illustrious "water engineer" career!

Poppy in 2009 after we installed a 300-foot-long pipe to bring water from the point of our water right collection point directly into our reservoir pond.  His satisfied smile says it all!