It’s December! While the boys and I heave and heft boxes from the attic, I wonder how we went from flip-flops and summer sun to December so quickly. But I don’t have too much time to ponder. The youngest boys pull the lids from red, plastic totes to plunder the contents inside.
There are hand-made snowmen made of socks. There’s the garland with deep red berries that drapes the mantle. There are white lights and colored lights and the angel candleholders that Samuel bought me, with his birthday money, when he was just five. And at the bottom of the green tote with the mismatched red lid is the box of last year’s Christmas cards.
It’s a decorative box, a painted tin, stuffed to the brim with outdated correspondence.
But it’s a treasure.
This box brings purpose for prayer.
Long ago, when my big boys were babes, Lonny and I began gathering the Christmas cards we received each season. We placed the cards in a basket on the table. At meal time, throughout the holiday season, we pulled a card from the stack and prayed for the senders. Christmas letters, tucked inside the cards, brought insight to prayer. As our boys grew, the tradition continued. Now we save the cards, pack them away with the decorations and begin to pray from last year’s bounty. When this year’s cards fill our mailbox, we’ll replace last year’s cards with new ones, and the boys will take turns choosing.
It’s a precious way to pray for family and friends. It’s a blessing, a joy and a way to help my boys develop hearts that are bent to lift others to the Lord.
The practice of prayer gives way to passion for prayer.
“I’ll put this the table,” 10-year-old Gabriel says. He takes the box in hand, and he’s off. He flies down the skinny back stairs, wool socks sliding over hardwood, in a quick flash of boyhood.
I smile on the inside.
Praying has become one of the greatest joys of Christmas.
It brings deep connection to others, with one another, and especially with the Lord.
Brothers, pray for us. (1 Thessalonians 5:25, ESV)
