Dawn Ward

Guard Your Heart

Santa Claus

So, my daughter, who is 6, asked me about Santa Claus this year. I totally didn’t see it coming. I first tried to side-step the question. She wasn’t having it. After a couple of attempts to divert her attention, I told her the truth.

To be honest, I always felt a little weird about the whole Santa Claus thing anyway. Yes, I believed in Santa Claus when I was younger, until about age 8, actually. My mother got the idea that it would be cool to put gift tags on our “Santa” that year. She had never done that before, and she didn’t bother to change her handwriting. That was my “aha” moment. So, I asked my dad if Santa was real. He responded in much the same way I did to my own daughter. And, like my daughter, I wasn’t to be diverted (I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree :0)). When I asked him point blank about the gift tags and Mom’s handwriting, he said Mom was just helping Santa out. Yeah, right. Good one, Dad, but I wasn’t buying it. And that was the end of Santa for me.

I know that Santa adds an element of joy and fun to Christmas, but what’s the right answer where this is concerned? As a Christian, do I perpetuate this myth with my child? I don’t know. I have allowed her to believe in Santa, and I HAVE perpetuated the belief….but….I always felt weird about it. I was lying to her, and that made me uncomfortable. What did God think? He says we are to tell the truth, and isn’t Christmas about Jesus’ birth? Doesn’t our real joy come from the fact that the greatest gift ever given came in the form of an infant who would save the world from itself? The answer in my mind is an unequivocal YES!

So, where does that leave Santa, and was I right to tell my daughter the truth when she asked me? My mother-in-law says that none of us can really know the truth. Perhaps, but there is one thing I know for sure to be true, and that is I want my daughter to know first and foremost that we celebrate CHRISTmas because of a baby named Jesus. He is the one and only Son of God who came to this earth in human form, lived a blameless life, and took my sin, her sin, and the sin of the entire world upon Himself so that we would never know the punishment for that sin if we would but accept His free gift of salvation. Santa can’t do THAT!

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Entering the Blogging World

Well, I can’t believe it, but I have finally entered the blogging world. I’m not really sure why I decided to give this a try. I don’t journal. I don’t consider myself to be much of a writer. I don’t really know if I have anything to say that people would be interested in reading, but I just wanted to do this, so I am.

Since I’ve chosen to start with a Christmas theme designed by the very talented Dawn @ Barefoot Blog Designs, maybe I will enter the blogging world with a Christmas story I wrote recently. Before sharing it, though, a brief comment about its creation. I am a HUGE Clay Aiken fan! He is having a contest right now whereby fans submit their favorite, or not so favorite, Christmas memories. He is reading each story himself and picking several to be read by the writers at a concert they will be attending. Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend, but I was prompted to write the following story anyway. Let me know if you think I should submit it.

The Hope of a Tree
I can still see the tree in my mind’s eye…artificial, six feet tall, with red, white, and blue balls hanging from its branches. Large multi-colored lights of orange, green, blue, red, and yellow were draped carelessly around the bottom sharing the spotlight with their smaller counterparts up top. The smaller lights blinked every few seconds as if to say, “Look at me!” Silver tinsel placed very carefully from top to bottom so as to be spaced exactly evenly and not ruin the effect. Handmade ornaments decorated the bottom forming a perfect circle just above the red and green tree stand. A crocheted red and white candy cane, Mr. and Mrs. Claus made from red and white yarn with felt pieces for facial features. And not to be outdone, adorning the very top of the tree, a sliver tinseled star with one each of red, green, blue, and yellow blinking lights. Lastly, icicles, silver icicles.

It paints a beautiful picture, doesn’t it? And yet, it was not, for this is where the colors of my painting begin to run.

There were only two of us kids, my brother, four years younger, and myself. Each year, hope for the season would spring anew. Hope that this year, things might be different. Hope that maybe Mother would decide this year two weeks of having the house decorated wouldn’t be enough, that she would long to see the beauty longer than that. Hope that while stringing those beautiful lights upon the tree that our father wouldn’t curse and scream at my mother about how much he hated it. Hope that Mother wouldn’t begin in September to remind us yet again how lean things were financially and that there wouldn’t be much for Christmas this year. Hope dimmed in the blur of colors running together as each year things remained exactly the same. And yet, the colors never dulled enough to completely extinguish hope for….

I have a new tree now…seven to eight feet tall, a real Frasier fir. The scent of pine fills the air. Its branches are still covered with those beautiful red, orange, blue, yellow, and green lights. Large one’s on the bottom and smaller, blinking one’s around the top. Their placement isn’t haphazard, nor is there cursing when they wind their way around the tree each year. The ornaments are an eclectic mix of Star Wars, Star Trek, Gone With the Wind, and Disney. Scarlett in her green velvet curtain dress. Rhett in his gray pants and white shirt when she visited him in jail. The Death Star. The Enterprise. The X-Wing Fighter. They all come down from the attic the day after Thanksgiving, for two weeks ISN’T long enough to enjoy the beauty. The tinsel is gold musical notes. Icicles. No tree is complete without icicles. They are red, my favorite color, the color of hope, the color of Christ’s precious shed blood. An angel, glowing in white, sits serenely atop this colorful masterpiece. Its colors are brilliant and vibrant and hope is no longer dim.

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About Me

I have been married for 17 1/2 years to my wonderful husband, Richard. We are blessed with one beautiful daughter, Rachel, who is 9. God has richly blessed me with these, and they are so precious to me.

I met Jesus as Lord and Savior of my life at the age of 11. However, I didn’t really understand what it meant to walk with Him daily until sometime in my late 20’s.

Ten years later, and I have just begun to realize that my whole life has been about running the race God has for me. Problem was, I could never find the starting line. And even if I had known where it was, I wouldn’t have known in which race I was to line up.

I now see that God is showing me I have been preparing for the race. I just didn’t know it. I have been building my endurance. I have been in the “training” phase, so to speak.

I am also beginning to understand that He may have me in different races at different times. We sometimes refer to this as the “seasons” of our lives.

Whatever you want to call it, ultimately, it’s all about God and for His glory. I love Him so, and I am falling more and more in love with Him every day. I am so thankful that He loves me, that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for me, that His Holy Spirit lives in me. With that knowledge, truly, whom shall I fear?

More than anything, I want to run my race in a way that honors Him with His Word guiding my feet. It is my hope and prayer that He will use me to help other’s find their race and run it with everything they have.

I don’t plan to cross the finish line until I see Him in heaven when I hope to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Blessings,
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