Decorating, shopping, baking, singing, wrapping, celebrating – it’s all here again. Bah- humbug!  That was how I was feeling about the Christmas season this year.  I was not looking forward to the “traditions” and secular trappings that we have allowed to steal the true reason we celebrate.  Satan was succeeding at stealing my joy.

It started with the Sunday before Thanksgiving when my boss asked for volunteers to decorate the restaurant I work for as a marketing director. I decided to be Scrooge and stay home that afternoon.  Little did I know that the next day would change my sour attitude for the better.

The volunteers had not done the decorating job up to the previous years’ standards, so my boss told my co-worker and I to fix it. In my foolishness I chose to stand on a chair instead of a ladder to hang an ornament at least eight feet high. Within a split second I lost my balance and down I went, landing directly on my left wrist, shattering it to pieces.  This was the moment I received my early Christmas gift!

You may be thinking, “Did she also land on her head? This is no gift!”  But yes it was and it presented itself in so many ways…

A compassionate boss

Concerned friends, family and co-workers

Great pain medication

Very competent surgeon and staff

These were all wonderful, but the best gift has been Bill, my very dedicated husband of 34 years!

He has stepped up to care for me in ways that astound and surprise me. Each morning he woke up early to make my breakfast and coffee exactly how I like it before he went to work. He came home each day to fix or bring lunch as well.   When we did not have dinner brought to us, he prepared awesome meals. He has done laundry, cleaning around the house, and yard work as well.  Not only does he cook, he washes and styles hair! That’s the surprising part because he knew how to straighten my unruly hair with a brush and blow dryer, all this with shoulder pain of his own.  Putting in contacts together had even become a routine that became quite comical.  He has had a servant’s heart throughout this ordeal never once complaining. My husband embodies what Ephesians 4:2 says, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

Yes, this injury has been a nuisance at times, but without it I would not have received such an awesome gift. Why God gave me the best husband in the world is beyond me!  I don’t deserve such a gift.  I only pray that I can be the same type of gift to him whenever he needs me.

Merry Christmas!