Today’s guest blogger is Mysterious Ways associate editor Diana Aydin.
This week on Facebook, the Mysterious Ways staff is writing about their favorite holiday memories from childhood and beyond. (If you haven’t checked out assistant editor Dan Kessel’s post about a Christmas Day car crash, be sure to take a look!)
I have my own the story to share. It’s a tale my mom recounts, without fail, every Christmas. In fact, this year she’s already told the story three or four times!
It was a couple of days before Christmas in 1984 and I was one and a half years old. My sisters had just gone to bed–visions of sugarplums no doubt dancing in their heads–but I was still awake and sitting in my mom’s lap. My dad plopped down next to the Christmas tree, rearranging all the pretty presents before Santa’s big arrival.
“And what do you want from Santa this year?” he asked my mom.
She didn’t have to think about her answer. “I just want Diana to walk,” she said. I’d been born with a dislocated hip and, for nearly a year, I had to wear a cast that went from my waist to my knees. My parents were getting nervous–the cast had come off in October, but I still hadn’t taken those first steps.
Well, not one to disappoint, I got up from my mom’s lap and walked over to my dad. My parents couldn’t believe it–they started crying and laughing. Confused, I started crying too!
“It was a true miracle,” my mom told me this past weekend. “My happiest Christmas.”
I don’t remember any of this. But growing up, just the idea that something so miraculous could happen always filled me with wonder and awe. If God cared so much about my first steps, I could only imagine what he had in store when it came to the bigger steps in life too.
What about you… do you have a simply unforgettable holiday memory? Get in on the conversation and submit your story or share it with us on Facebook.
Photo caption: That’s me on the left around age 3 trimming the tree with my sister!
