All together around the table...

Tonight, Christmas Eve, I have my family.

All together.

We sit around the table.

There is some awkwardness, but there is also something else.

There is love.

Here we are where love sits.

Love passed as we pass the food.  As we talk, as we laugh.

Brother and sister sit side by side, it is a lovely picture.

Hubby and his Mom, and me.

Here we are where love lives.

Where love throbs each heartbeat, each longing.

I get up to serve a dish to sonny boy.

He reaches out to me, wraps his arms around me.

I bend over and hold him, close to my heart.

He might be two again, that is what it like.

Mother and child.

This bond though fractured, never completely broken.

I feel tears rise to surface, but

not spill over.

The Prince of Peace has come.

He comes tonight.

Our family love-wrapped in

His advent.

The advent of

hope, salvation

and new beginnings.

We do not know what tomorrow brings.

After Christmas,

real life continues.

We plead for wholeness,

for redemption from hurt.

We pray for healing,

in our bodies, souls, and spirits.

Healing

in our relationships.

But for now -

this is enough,

all of us together

around the table.