A Christmas Miracle

[Lonna]

I was feeling depressed and sorry for myself. I found myself bursting into tears at unexpected times. Why? Because at Christmas when I was a little girl, my father died--and ever since, Christmas has been hard for me.

This year I was flat broke so that I couldn't visit my brother in Arizona on Christmas, my friend's husband just left her with four kids and no money, and I had no cookies.

I was praying for a Christmas miracle.

Then today my son Jonathan (Little Frodo) had his picture on the front page of our local (small) newspaper to celebrate the opening of "The Two Towers." The paper also ran an article I wrote about our local recent "Singing Christmas Tree" production.

My friend Lisa baked me Christmas cookies with silver sprinkles, hot from the oven. And I got a call from an old friend who is sending me an unexpected check.

So I got my Christmas miracle of 2002. And I realize how many people out there could use one.

And I also realize that 2002 years ago the best Christmas miracle of all happened in a humble stable, when God's Son came to live with us. Stars and angels and shepherds and animals celebrated that Christmas. Wise men brought gifts.

And the miracle can still touch us today, wherever we are, whatever circumstances we face.

Merry Christmas to you all.

[HLGStrider]

Elgee says merry christmas then gasps when she realizes she has found a PUBLISHED author... gasps again... sigh... Turns green....

[Aglarthalion]

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Lonna for her post. I'm going through a very hard time of my life at the moment, and your post, Lonna, has brought something of the Spirit of Chritmas into my heart. Thankyou.

I'd also like to wish not only a Merry Christmas to all, but also to hope that a miracle will touch you all in some way. I know I could certainly use one at the moment, and Lonna has provided me with the knowledge that it can happen. I'll be more than hoping.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good-night (it's 1:24am here... so I'd better be having a good-night :p)

Thanks again, Lonna. ;)

[Lantarion]

Thank you Lonna, that was truly wonderful.
Merry (Early) Christmas to all!
If someone's feeling low, Avril Lavigne has a wonderful song called "I'm With You", which puts my grief into perspective..

[Lossengondiel]

What a wonderful story and merry christmas to all TTF members!

with love from Lossengondiel

[ILLOTRTM]

That's a really great thing to hear, Lonna. You've really brought the spirit of Christmas to me this year, putting that thought in my head. And perhaps you've brought the spirit into others who have read this thread. And that, you must admit, just might be a miracle in itself :)

Merry Chistmas, everone.
~Cora

[Dragon]

yay! lets all sing christmas carols!!!...or... not
Merry Christmas

[HLGStrider]

Careful, Dragon... you'll get RD to post his Bob and Doug Christmas song again (see my stuff and bother thread about when you celebrate Christmas)....
;)

[FREEDOM!]

I'm sorry about your dad and your friend Lonna, Merry Christmas!

[Lonna]

:) Thanks for the nice responses to my post, everyone. I hope you all have a Christmas miracle.

My friend Samantha has had food, presents, and money appear mysteriously into her life. Someone even gave her a tree to decorate.

My favorite Christmas carol is "Silent Night." Anyone know the history about you wrote it and why?

And the angel said:
"Behold, I bring good news of great joy that shall be for all people . . . "
(see The Gospel of Luke Chapter 2)
:)

[HLGStrider]

I saw a movie when I was young called "Silent Mouse" where this mouse chewed a hole in the organ so they had to use a guitar and so they wrote Silent Night for voices and Guitar...

Anyway, my favorite is "What Child Is This?" because it is haunting and sounds good on Clarinet.... my instrument of choice.

[Dragon]

I vaguely remember seeing something about silent night, and people escaping from some sort of camp, or country or something of the sort.

my favorite is carol of the bells, or christmas eve serenade by the trans-siberian orchestra.

[HLGStrider]

My favorite part of Carol of the Bells is the people in the back who go "Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong..." ;)

[Nefmariel]

That was wonderfull, I just wanted to say that and thank you for making my day a little more joyful.

[Lonna]

http://www.lonnawilliams.com/image2119.gif
(Check out Little Frodo)

Hey everyone,

I just got back from Arizona (Phoenix) where I visited my brother and his family. It was great to see them all. The amazing thing is that Bob is my older half-brother, and I didn't even know he existed until 2 years ago when he tracked me down (he's a ex cop). Apparantly, my father was busy with another family before he met my mom.

When I got a letter from Bob 2 years ago, with my maiden name as his last name, I just knew he was my brother even before I opened the envelope. Isn't that cool?

We didn't grow up together, but Bob and I are trying to make up for lost time. We went horseback writing on red Arizona hills.

So I guess that's another Christmas miracle.:)

[Lonna]

Gee, I meant "horseback riding," not "horseback writing." I guess I've got writing on my mind (I need to get back to work!). It was a long drive from Arizona back to California today . . .
:o

[Lonna]

I'm really glad for my Christmas miracles, but I also think that Christmas is a stressful time, full of ups and downs. I wrote this today, after getting back from Arizona (bear with me, it's kind of long):

It’s Christmas again. I burst into tears at random times: tears for baby Michael who died five years ago, tears for my father who shot himself when I was almost five, tears for my mother and my lost brother Kerry.

Christmas is a stressful time. It brings out dormant sorrows and angers. It forces families together, makes people confront things, causes contemplation of the passing year.

This Christmas, thanks to unexpected help from my first husband and his wife Louise (with whom Edd and I are still friends), we traveled to Arizona. We visited my brother Bob who found me two years ago. He took us horseback riding in the red rock hills and introduced us to his children and granddaughter (who is only 3 years younger than my son Jonathan). Bob and I got into arguments late at night, standing in a doorway at his house. He focuses on the suffering in this world and blames God.

“But can’t you see the beauty in the world?” I ask, my words like a silver sword held poised above me. “And can’t you see that someday suffering will end because Christ came to bear the Curse and bring us new life? That’s the meaning of Christmas: joy for all the people, as the angel said. Suffering will lie in the past, gone, forgotten, like stepping through this doorway, from one side to the other . . . “

“God is a sadist,” Bob retorts, and I feel the anger in him as he raises his words like a broad black sword to slam against mine. Edd intervenes, urging me to silence. I will not change Bob’s view. People see what they want to see.

When I return to the hotel room, I feel the exhaustion of battle and think of the long drive home.

I live in a place like Lothlorian, forest home of Elves. My house is wood, tall like a fortress, built among the trees that tower over it in tiers of graceful branches. At Christmastime, we place small white lights among the wood and greenery, like Galadriel’s kingdom glowing with lanterns. Our house makes the forest resound with the music of voices and stringed instruments.

I sit at my bedroom window and watch the sun shine on new snow which covers the slope and streambed. The bright-lit snow weighs down the evergreens, making different patterns on different types of leaves. It is almost too bright to look for my eyes.

The sunlight slants into my window, lighting the glass oil lamp and crystal vase filled with yellow silk daffodils. The sunlight dances upon the gold candle sniffer and the big silver key.

“What is that key to?” my children once asked me, imagining a huge door with a keyhole so large.

“To my castle in England,” I replied. They quietly accepted my words.
But now I think it is to my castle here, in the California mountains, in my place like Lothlorian.

And when the moon rises, I will stand at the edge of a mountain lake and watch the colors change in the sky above the dark treeline. Pink will melt to green and yellow and blue. The water will light up with the moon’s reflection, ever changing on the waves.

The moon will shine upon the new snow of the forest, contrasting white with the shadows of trees.

And, like Galadriel--wise and beautiful and fading from this world, Queen of the Elves, and keeper of a ring of power--I will know that a dark force encroaches from the lands below. But I will not wait for it to come. Like Selah, I will descend from my mountain. I will go to the darkest places of the Keeps where slaves are chained behind the thickest stone doors. I will bring a little light with me and tell about the mountains and the sky. And I will lead people to the Summit.

*******************
Can anyone identify? Do you have a good/bad Christmas story to share?

[Lonna]

Here's another Christmas miracle:

Chelsea Smith, the teenager who spent the entire summer in a hospital, fighting Krohn’s disease, stood beside her father this Christmas and sang the opening solo for the Twentieth Annual Singing Christmas Tree. She stood like a princess in a black velvet tunic, her golden hair curling around her shoulders. She smiled, her cheeks a little chubby from Prednisone, her eyes glittering in the spotlight.

I couldn’t stop the tears from running down my cheeks as she sang, and I remembered all those days in the hospital when her mother Mary camped out beside her, sleeping on a rollaway bed in the tiny room. And all the times we visited her, bringing presents or crafts for her to paint, and all the artwork decorating the walls--flowers in pastel pinks and blues and yellows, drawn on wooden plaques and boxes, entwined with green leaves. And all the I.V lines running into her thin arms and the bruise marks from needles, and knowing she was bleeding internally and couldn’t even drink water. And we brushed her long hair and gave her a glowing crystal necklace so that she looked like a princess, small and frail . . .

Steve’s clear tenor voice brought me back to the present, as he joined in a duet with the daughter he could have lost. He smiled, his Santa Claus cheeks rosy above his graying beard and his eyes bright behind his gold-rimmed glasses. The light caught his black tuxedo and green waistcoat, mixing colors with the clear notes of music that sang to the Christchild:

“Welcome to our world.”

And Edd’s cheeks also ran with tears, and surely anyone in the audience who knew the Smith’s story could not help but feel awe--like a spring bubbling up within them--as they witnessed this Christmas miracle.:)

[Hobbit-GalRosie]

That is the most amazing and beautiful story I have ever heard... Except of course the original story of Christmas. I simply must thank everyone who contributed to this thread for their insights that have given me some true joy this Christmas season, but most especially Lonna, a dear, honest, loving person with the heart of the greatest of poets, who makes every word as fresh as morning dew, invoking images of places faraway, that I have never been but in the dream world her writing creates. Always her works are full of love and wonder, and speak to my heart in ways nothing else can...For she knows what it is to truly live, and to love God with all your heart, to find Him in every person and every thing he lovingly put on this earth with us. That spirit of love and wisdom flows over in every word. It amazes me that she can do this when I am so many miles away, and cannot hear her speak these enchanting words, and yet, though otherwise they would only be meaningless patterns on my computer screen, her words draw me in, and I see and feel everything in such unbelievable detail. You have a gift Lonna. Don't ever become discouraged about writing, for it would be a true shame for you to waste the talents God has given you.

[munchkin]

Those are great christmas storys! This is gonna liven up my post-christmas sprit!

[Lonna]

Dear Hobbit-GalRosie,

Thanks so much for your kind words of encouragement.

God bless,

Lonna

[omnipotent_elf]

wow, lonna, congradulations
what a story.........