What Jesus means to me...

Today I am sad.
 
I miss my family, I miss being at home, I miss opening presents one by one and oohing and aaaahhing at what everyone got.
I miss sleeping beside my sister and waking up early on Christmas morning even into our young adulthood.

My 1st married Christmas, away from home. Though I feel sad about the life I left 12 hours behind, there are excitements as well, my 1st one with Justin, my first celebrating with the Rist family.

I expected these emotions for my 1st married holiday, I suppose they are very common for most all newlyweds.
But there is another feeling I cannot shake today, a little pain in my heart that isn't so bad as to depress me, but enough to be a constant reminder of what would/could have been, yesterday I would have been 18 weeks pregnant.
I can't help but think about much merrier today and tomorrow would be, if we could see and touch my growing belly, if we could call our baby by name, and include him or her in the present giving and receiving and conversations.
How much excitement there would be about the coming of our 1st baby, the first niece/nephew, the 1st grandchild.

All around me it seems there are people who are in abundance of babies, people who seem to have been gifted with bionic fertility, and the only baby I have ever conceived is gone from me now.

While we were at my new families house today, after the Christmas story was read, Justin's mom had the idea of everyone going around in a circle and telling what Jesus meant to them...
I am thankful for this idea, because it has been so easy for me today to dwell on the past and the "what ifs"
instead of why we celebrate this season in the 1st place, instead of why this is such a miraculous season.

What does Jesus mean to me?  He is my helper, He is my rock, He is my shoulder to cry on, He is the calmer of my life's storms.
When I read that positive pregnancy test, He was right there rejoicing along with me, when I was in the ER scared and lost, realizing every time I went to the bathroom that I was loosing my baby more and more, He was there, though I didn't realize it.
  The hours I have spent charting and planning, when I sat on the bathroom floor crying for hours because yet again someone else had a pregnancy announcement on facebook, in the wee hours when Justin lay sleeping beside me and I lay beside him in bed thinking about the future, God wasn't sleeping.

Yes He is my Savior He is my teacher, He is my God He is everything, but more specifically this year He has been the strength I couldn't have attained myself.
 Yet as I look into next year, and what it will hold for me, the excitement and fear I have for what may lay ahead, He is my hope.
No He is my future.