Why I Love the holidays!

>
> It is so hard to believe that the winter holidays are here.
> Sometimes this season is real hard on people. Others really come
> to life as it is their favorite time of the year. I can fully
> understand the challenge especially for those who have lost loved
> ones during this time of the year.
>
> I am writing from the passenger seat as my 18 year old son drives us
> through the state of Illinois toward my real roots of rural
> Oklahoma. The first Christmas I remember was there. I was seven
> years old and in the first grade. My mom and stepdad went to
> Florida to get a place and get settled and my younger brother and I
> were living with grandma until the end of the school year. My mom
> sent us a whole huge box of toys that were dollar store level. I
> remember opening this big huge box of toys with my brother a couple
> of weeks early because we missed my mom so much. But then
> Christmas came. I remember waking up and there were no more toys.
> My uncles and grandma told me that Santa must have delivered them to
> Florida by mistake and they would be there in a couple of days. I
> was shocked. I still remember being bummed out Christmas morning.
> And then I remember a couple of days later getting my gifts and
> being so happy. I was only seven but had a feeling they were not
> from Santa but from my mom. One of my top ways of feeling loved is
> through gifts and it always means so much to me when I receive a gift.
>
> As I head to Oklahoma for only the third time since I was at my
> grandma's funeral when I was in about the fifth grade....
>
> As I head back to my humble roots here is what is on my heart:
>
> 1. I am proud of and grateful for my family! Now that I am an
> adult and pay the bills I really see the sacrifice of my grandma and
> uncles giving their time and money to take care of my brother and I
> two separate years. (1st grade and 3rd grade!). Now that I have kids
> of my own I know they are a ton of work and money.
>
> 2. My grandma would send me to church every week and those were
> the first seeds sown into my spiritual life! I remember my aunt
> getting baptized. I remember someone bringing my grandma an audio
> bible and we would listening to it often. Even though I became a
> little delinquent in Miami, FL, those seeds did not come back void
> and those prayers did not go unanswered!
>
> 3. I am glad I was born in Oklahoma! Whenever I am asked where I
> am from, I usually answer Miami, FL. I was proud of growing up in a
> cool, tough urban neighborhood. But my family in Oklahoma gave me
> so much when by some American standards they might not have been up
> there on ladder of sucess. But they have so much more in love for
> family, hospitality, and a slower paced life (for the most part :).
>
> It is cool to go to a part of America where being a pastor is highly
> respected and up there with being a doctor or a lawyer. I was
> shocked when one of my cousins thought it was cool that someone in
> our family had made it. I didn't tell him that a "garbage truck
> driver" makes at least twice as much as a youth pastor in urban
> Chicago. I love serving God though and look forward to seeing
> family. Spending quality time with them is why I love the holidays!