It's a strange Christmas for us this year. Aside from the unseasonably warm weather, we will be celebrating a little differently than usual. This will be our first year to not see the lights downtown Marshall... we started dating in December of 2007. A year later, Cameron asked me to marry him and we walked around downtown Marshall afterwards. We stopped and sat on a bench for the longest time under a tree covered in red lights and just stared at the courthouse all lit up. It was a quiet moment to sit back and soak in the joy. The first year we were married it didn't work out for us to see any family for Christmas- so it was just us. A great couple (Glen and Misty Scott) invited us to come to their home for lunch on Christmas. We didn't have anywhere else to go (at least nowhere we could afford to go) so we went and were blessed that first year to get to share the holiday with their family. After lunch, we left and drove downtown to look at the lights. I don't remember a lot from that day, but I remember Cameron pointing out the tree that we had sat under a year before. I remember being surprised that it stuck in his head the way it did in mine. Since then, we've gone back each year on Christmas day to look at the lights and see our tree, and remember just for a moment our special night.
This year we won't get to go to Marshall on Christmas day. It's been a different year. We came to San Antonio because I really believed (and still do) that it is what God was telling us to do. It's been hard being so far from friends and not having our church family, and even harder for me to be away from my mom, my best friend. I came here believing God had some great work to accomplish through me working with Sam Ministries. While I did most certainly slip right into a me-sized hole in that organization, the longer I'm here, the more I see that God's plan was so much bigger. Honestly, SAMM just seems like a tiny side note to what our time in San Antonio has brought us. I knew from the start that God wasn't sending us here forever, and that our time would be short-lived, but I can't help but be surprised at how the timing worked out.
When I found out about being pregnant, I was thrilled, but upset that I would be in San Antonio for the whole thing- away from my mom and friends. I originally refused to accept that I would have Violet here. I told my doctor in Longview that I would just drive up for appointments and then about two months before I was due, I would come back to Longview so I could have the baby there, and then go back to San Antonio afterwards. She looked at me like I was crazy (which I was).
We originally came expecting to stay a year, but later realized that we may be here longer than that. I had a hard time adjusting to the idea that I needed to start making a life here in San Antonio. I felt like God was asking me to give up my life (which I had left in East Texas). The funny thing is, after a little time (and encouragement from my friend Paige) I had really started to believe that there could be a life here for us. We started to grow accustomed to the idea and together made the commitment to make an effort (once I stop being sick thanks to Violet) to really start building relationships with others in the area. We got a notice that our lease was coming up at the end of January and we had discussed signing a new one... it's like the moment that we gave up on going back to Longview and accepted that God may have other plans for us, He was like "just kidding guys, it took yall long enough to decide I know better... and by the way, I think it's better if yall go back to Longview pretty soon."
I feel like in some ways God was just testing me to see if I'd be willing to give it up. I say me and not us because Cameron didn't struggle the same way I did with leaving. He missed friends and everything, but he was excited about San Antonio and all it had to offer. I've lived in large areas before and already knew that I didn't want what it offers. Before we left I tried to explain why Longview was the perfect place for us to be and to start a family, but Cameron didn't see it the way I did. He didn't appreciate it. The longer we're here though, the more he seems to notice the merits of Longview. By the time his job called and said things were changing, he was pretty ecstatic that it meant cutting our time in San Antonio short.
I know this whole thing was long winded and seems disjointed, but it's a lot of different things that I've been mulling around in my head. When it comes down to it, this whole year seems like Christmas to me. You see, we celebrate Christmas because Christ was born. We give gifts to symbolize the gift He gave in coming here. The Christmas story is the story of birth and new life and love. It's not getting rid of the old, but rather the fulfilling of what was old. That's what this year feels like to me. We didn't get rid of our old life, God gave us a gift. We didn't understand it at first (just as many didn't understand the birth of Christ at first for the gift that it was), but I can see now that our time in San Antonio was a blessing, or rather fulfillment of the abundant life that Christ offers to us. Returning to Longview isn't returning to our old life, but rather coming into something new because we're not the same people who left it- we've both changed. The love that started there, that we drive to Marshall every year to remember, it's grown so much that God is giving us a new little person to share it with. We get our own little birth of new life and love and it spreads not just between us, but to all aspects of our life.
Lord thank you for Christmas.
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