Last year I bought some stockings at Target for our home. I had a mismatched assortment and wanted to update with neutral stockings. They were warm and fuzzy, and the kids loved them. So when I was in Target after Christmas I noticed they had a few left, marked down on clearance. I decided to pick one up for our future son or daughter in Haiti and pack it away for this year. I honestly thought that by this time we would at least know who he or she is, and I would be able to fill the stocking for them and send it down to Haiti.
But here it is, a year later, and there is no news. When I unpacked my totes of Christmas decor I found the stocking and just sat there for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure what to do. Put it back in the tote for next year?
I hung up the stocking. I don’t really know what to do with it. Fill it? With what? For a boy or a girl? A baby? Toddler? Small child?
I think I’ve decided that this year, on Christmas Eve when I fill the other stockings I’m going to take some time to sit down and write out a letter to our child. I’m going to let them know all my hopes and prayers for them. And then I’m going to tuck it away in the stocking and I leave it.
Please Lord, by next year, may I be able to pull out that stocking to hang it up and find the letter. And may I be able to read it to my child, who is sitting in the living room with me. Please.
Next year at Christmas may I be able to give him or her gifts and help them decorate cookies.
Next year at Christmas may I be able to fill the stocking till it’s overflowing.
And most of all next year at Christmas may I be able to hold my child in my arms.
For this year I will slip the note in their stocking and cling to the truth that is in Isaiah 45:5-6:
I am the Lord, there is no other God.
I have equipped you for battle,
though you don’t even know me,
so that all the world from east to west will know there is no other God.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
This battle is long and hard. But may the whole world know that you are God, and there is no other. May this be about you, not me.
And please, preserve my baby, wherever they may be this Christmas.
donnahup says
I think that’s beautiful, Becky!!