I was on my hands and knees back arched and opening myself wide to give.  “I’m crowning”, I cried as my doula shot out of the room to fetch the nurse.  I wan’t about to wait any longer to give birth and so I did.

And there he was.  Red and new and peaceful lying below me.  A new person.  I was exhausted.

I was standing at the interesection between 9 months of giving my body to grow a new person and 6 months of sleeplessness and nourishing this little person.

Giving is a labor.  Sacrifices are made.  Pain follows.  But God magnifies the joy.

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We scrape together money and buy the girls and the baby boy shoes that won’t fall apart in 8 weeks time.  My adventuresome kids break through cheap shoes like so many toothpicks and their feet grow at a rate of only 1/2-1 shoe size a year.  We buy a size up and the investment is worth it not to replace cheap shoes every 3 months.   A couple weeks later I slip on my sneakers to go to a workout class.  There’s a hole in the toe of my beloved 6 year old Asics.

The in-laws they always send us an open check for Christmas.  They ask quietly to be told how we spend it.  This year we divide it equally 1/3 for Derek, 1/3 for me, 1/3 for the children. I want a camera body and lens combination that costs 10.6 times the amount I now have.  I’m burdened with whether to save or spend it.  But I spend the children’s on 3 large gifts and a little people nativity.  Toys that will cause laughter and magic while I save for my dream.

I dig through the scrap pile and cut up an old pillow for stuffing.  Twin dolls for each girl and a pirate for the boy materialize.  Matching cards too.  An old set of sheets paired with a new set will rise to make a magical reading/play tent with pillows to go in the girl’s new room.

We sell a server: 1/2 the amount I’d need for my camera.  We talk about what we need most: to build the girl’s loft bed, to buy Sedryn his full sized mattress.  A one button mouse and a movable alphabet for my girl who just isn’t responding to my current reading curriculum because it doesn’t match her kinetic  learning style.  We need a toilet fixed downstairs to move the girls to that room.

Christmas will be magical.  The joy of gifts given a true sacrifice for the joy of our little people.  Giving is love.

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I wonder aloud to Derek last night if we should have some other children over the Saturday before Christmas.  If we should throw a birthday party for “the brave little boy, who was God, but made himself nothing”.  To have the children gather around, hear the story of the Christ child, sing him happy birthday, eat cake, and play.  But most importantly to ask the children to give Jesus a birthday present.  Ask them to bring some allowance, or the coins in the couch cushion, or their piggy banks.  To pool their money and buy a playground for children who have no playground.  For children like our Delsys from Compassion international.

To teach the children that giving can hurt in the most beautiful joy filled life-altering way.  To teach them that giving is love.
Giving is caring for someone more than yourself.