[guide.chat] In Reply To: peace on earth
- From: "Dawn Watson" <dawnyhen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Guide Chat" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2012 18:45:54 -0000
Hi Harold, this story was just wonderful. I intended to reply to this earlier.
I hope you and your family had a good Xmas.
dawn
:Fwd: Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
By Donna Milligan Meadows
The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a
happy family all wrapped up in each other.
~Burton Hillis
"Peace on earth, good will to men" sang out from the stereo. I usually
love Christmas carols, but peace on earth had absolutely nothing to do
with me this Christmas. I hadn't felt any peace since August when I had
heard the doctor say excitedly to me, "Donna, it's triplets!" My mouth
had dropped open as I gazed at him with unbelieving eyes.
They were due in October, and suddenly we were catapulted into a
frenzy, having only two months to get ready for three babies instead of
the one we had thought was coming. We already had two children. Melissa
was three-and-a-half and David was two. They had begun to understand,
as much as very young children can, that soon a baby was supposed to
emerge from Mommy's watermelon tummy and they would be a big sister and
a big brother. How do you even begin to prepare them for three helpless
infants? We went into panic mode.
"We need two more cribs, Randy. How will we ever fit three cribs into
this ten-foot-by-ten-foot room?"
"Do you realize how many diapers we are going to need?"
"Can you breastfeed triplets?"
"Will we ever sleep again?"
October arrived along with three very healthy babies, two boys and a
girl. Our lives became a whirlwind of activity, with feeding, bathing,
feeding, diapering, feeding, consoling, feeding, crying (it was usually
me doing the crying), feeding, tending, feeding, feeding and feeding.
"I can get through the next minute without screaming," I would often
tell myself as I heard one of the babies start to cry again. Somehow
the days passed until it was December and time to think about getting
ready for Christmas.
We had some wonderful Christmas traditions, our favorite being a family
get-together on Christmas Eve with my parents and my sister and her
family. How could I ever prepare for a family party with five children
under the age of four? "Please put the tree up in the living room for
me," I begged my husband as I sat each baby in a swing and one toddler
temporarily on each end of a couch, as far away from each other as possible.
I'd get a few decorations on the tree before having to pluck a crying
baby out of the swing. "Melissa, please don't throw the ornaments," I
begged as I used my free hand to grab the back of David's shirt to keep
him from climbing into the just-emptied baby swing. I wondered if a
decorated tree was going to be impossible as I stood looking at the
total confusion in the room. After a few moments of contemplation, I
called to my husband. "Randy, set up the playpen. I've got a great idea!"
It looked quite strange to see a Christmas tree in a playpen, but it
looked beautiful from outside. No one could tell just by driving by
that our decorations were quite unusual. I don't remember where we hung
the stockings. I gave up completely the idea of baking Christmas
cookies. We didn't hang any lights outside, and I can't imagine how we
ever got any presents purchased, let alone wrapped. The presents did
fit nicely in the playpen, too, out of the reach of busy little hands.
I saw my family drive up on Christmas Eve and stuffed a few toys under
the couch. It was pretty much chaos throughout the house as my sister's
little girl joined our two little ones. "Santa's coming, Santa's
coming," they chanted while running in circles around the room. One of
the babies kept crying. I couldn't imagine what was wrong until I
suddenly realized that I had fed his brother twice, and he had missed
out on his dinner. Where was the peace that you hope for at
Christmastime? I didn't think I would ever feel peace again.
We ate dinner, and as my mom got the kitchen cleaned up, we tried to
corral the kids. "It's time to tell the Christmas story. Please quiet
down! And stand still," I begged as I tried to use old towels to dress
Melissa and David up as Mary and Joseph and my niece as a shepherd
girl. I'm not sure which baby boy was the infant Jesus, but the other
made a great sheep dressed in his snowsuit, and Melanie made a
beautiful angel, dressed in her blessing dress. "Shhhh," I hushed the
kids as Grandpa began to read from the Bible.
And then a miracle happened. The babies completely quieted down, and
the older children turned all their attention to the quiet words and
listened with rapt concentration to the beautiful story of the baby
Jesus being born. As I looked around at all of the adults in the room,
there were tears on everyone's cheeks. The spirit of Christ was in the
room, and the peace I had wondered about earlier had arrived.
Most of that Christmas is still a blur, but I will always remember with
great clarity the overwhelming calm I felt as I listened to the
Christmas story that night and watched my beautiful children experience
the feeling of the spirit of Christ in their hearts. I knew then that
peace on earth was possible, for it was in my home that night.
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