The early hours of Christmas morning look so different this year.

Though I’ve always loved Christmas and enjoyed spending it with my hubs and family, in the past, it has come with a cloud. I’ve been happy, but sad.

“Yes, we have a great time, but…. wouldn’t it be so much better with a little one?”

“Sure, let’s take pictures, but…. it’ll just be another picture with two.”

I’ve avoided social media until I thought I could handle the overwhelming number of posts and pictures of my friend’s children making their new Christmas memories.

Happy, but sad.

I’ve said before that empty arms at Christmas is almost as bad as empty arms at Mother’s Day. It’s so hard. Holidays are supposed to be happy times, but when dealing with infertility, it can be anything but. That overwhelming, larger-than-life desire for a home full of little ones can be so smothering, it’s easy to blow past the happy and just be sad. It’s just hard.

Thankfully, earlier this year, the Lord worked a miracle in my heart.

I realized that it wouldn’t matter if He had given me my childhood dream of six kids. They couldn’t fulfill me; only He can do that.

When I gave up that dream of six, and decided I’d settle for two…it still wouldn’t matter. There would still be emptiness in my heart.

When I got to the point where I would do anything to just have one, just one little one to love and call me Mama… Contrary to what I believed at the time, that wouldn’t make me happy in the long run.

The Lord showed me that if I hung all my hopes and dreams for joy and happiness on children, I would be dreadfully disappointed. Until I was more interested in Him, children would be a distraction that would only drive me further from Him. I had to relearn to cast myself upon Him and trust that He would take care of me.

Until I was satisfied with God as my Father, I would never be satisfied being someone’s mother.

When that realization smacked me upside my head, it broke my heart. The God who cares enough for me to teach me the super hard, super unpleasant lessons I need to learn is worthy of all of me.

No more withholding this one part of my heart, but I laid all of myself on the altar for God to do with as He sees fit….whether anyone ever called me “Mama” or not.

That was a miracle.

From then on, I was different. I was happy. Don’t get me wrong, there were still moments of fleeting sadness when I thought about what may never be, but I was immediately reminded that I had my Father, and He was and always would be all that I need.

Of course, a few months later, Mac was born, and our whole world changed again.

On past Christmases, my arms were empty and my heart was aching. This year, my arms are full with a squirming, smiling, happy six month old baby, and my heart is full of love, not only for our baby, but for the infinite God who became a Baby that would grow up and die to take away my sin.

What once was empty is now filled, and is overflowing. All because of Christ.

In the fullness of time, Jesus came to this earth…and in the fullness of time, He works out His perfect will in our lives.

What a privilege to get to read the Christmas story to our little one and tell him all about the impossibilities that are possible through Christ.

If you’re still in the season of waiting, be happy and sad today, but remember the Baby who came to heal all the broken things in this world…even the broken hearts.

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

~Galatians 4:4-7

Merry Christmas, friends. ❤️