A Fox in A Box

It's  4:40 a.m. Christmas morning and just like the first 40 years of my life, I haven't been able to sleep. 'Back then the magic of the day wouldn't allow me too even in the lean years--the years we had no money for presents so wrote notes to each other or the socks and underwear years. This year I think it has to do more with a recent surgery I had, but who knows? Maybe it's the magic.

A few weeks ago my 4 year-old granddaughter, Jena arrived for a sleepover with her cousins and she was so excited. Practically breathless she said to me, "Gwamma, I got you a fox in a box!"

She knows I love foxes. My fox fetish started about 12 years ago after my mother died. I fell into a deep depression, and then I started seeing foxes. I saw them whenever I'd go on my river walk. One day they came curiously close to me. So close I almost touched them when I knelt down and extended my hand. I saw them in fields and then I saw them at the cemetery near her grave. My mom was such an animal lover that I believe when she died, there was a great shift in the heavens as thousands of God's creatures ran to meet her. I felt like the foxes were a small sign from her or God that she was still there.

So, when Jena handed me a small shoe box and I pulled back a piece of paper and there drawn on the bottom of the cardboard with orange crayon was a little fox adorned with a few small stickers, my heart melted. "See Gwamma, a fox in a box. I knew you would love it." It is probably my favorite Christmas present this year. In fact as I'm writing this in the wee hours of the morning looking at the Christmas tree and all the presents around it I'm thinking, "What else could I possibly need?

I've already received the best gifts this season. Along with my fox in a box, I got:
* a text from my son one day telling me he wouldn't be coming home for lunch because he had seen a person eating alone and joined them.
* I had a sweet sister buy me a new nativity for my eclectic collection when I know that funds were extremely tight for her.

* I had one of my old young women come by and sing me a beautiful song she'd written and give me a tender note.
* I got to see my grandchildren perform the nativity at a nursing home and hear my oldest granddaughter, Charlotte say, "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord," and I could almost remember witnessing this event and singing joyfully with my less than mediocre voice as I marveled at the simplicity and the magnitude of his birth.
* I got to use the power of  Christ's atonement several times this month as He bore my griefs and carried my sorrows, not in some figurative, abstract way, but in a literal, powerful way that was nothing short of miraculous to me as my burdens were lifted and gone.
* He has helped me see others through his eyes and healed my broken heart helping me to forgive. Oh how could I possibly receive anything better?

So, I will sit here in the still, magical twilight hours and ponder small, simple gifts and marvel at a  Savior who gives the best gifts of all.

Merry Christmas 2017!