Debbie Futhey - Floral designer at Memories of Home
Hello Everyone,
I know I should write a newsletter about how wonderful the holidays will be for all of us because we’ve all decorated our houses beautifully. But as most of you know me, I try to keep it real. Somehow, I feel like C.S. Lewis when he called his book, Always Winter and Never Christmas: A Holiday Story.
Will it stay “winter” forever? Will it ever be Christmas again? Sometimes my heart asks that very question.  I am reminded of the year 1992. I was so excited about the birth of our baby boy. Having had four adorable daughters prior, I looked forward to great anticipation of what a boy would bring to our lives. I did have feelings that this child was different than all the other pregnancies I had ever had. His movements were not strong nor was there a lot of movement of him in the womb. I believe God had prepared me in many different ways for this son who was going to be born with Down Syndrome. So when he was born in November I was somewhat prepared for this special arrival. At birth we were told that our son had a serious heart condition. However, I did not know all we would have to go through in the coming months.

Winter came early to our house that year.

On Christmas Eve of that year our baby boy went into heart failure and was hospitalized the day after Christmas. I knew the blue lips he had were not normal and his breathing was not like any other baby I had ever seen.

Winter had truly set in.

We knew he would have to have heart surgery as soon as he was stabilized. Then another setback in the coming days. He developed a digestive issue in and was hospitalized again. We were told by a doctor that he would never do all the things that other “normal kids” would ever do. He would not ride a bike, go to school, and on and on. And his parting words were, “I can’t fix your baby.”

Definitely, we felt as though Winter would never end.

Then, the first of March came and we were told they HAD to do surgery on his heart and that he would have about a 10% chance of survival.

Would winter ever be over for us?

I do not recall when I saw the very first signs of “spring” in our life. But God gave us hope that “spring” was coming. And as the months rolled on, some good and some not so good, I could see God was going to bring about a “spring” like we had never seen before.

All my other children had been rolling over and cooing, long before our son did, but when he rolled over–I wanted to announce it to the world. We all wanted to shout it from the rooftops. When he sat up at 1 year old you would have thought he would have set a world’s record for the youngest baby to ever sit up. And at 14 months when he took his first steps–oh my–it should have gone in the Guinness Book of World’s Records.

And yes–a new season was here and we were able to enjoy it even more than ever before because we didn’t know for sure if it would ever come to our house again. But it did. All in God’s own time.

So I say this to you this holiday season. Winter will not last forever. It only seems like it will. Hang on to that hope. The hope that this holiday season will show us all we have to be grateful for and all the blessings that we have taken for granted in the “good” years that have come and gone.

This is the season for hope. And while today, you may feel as though it’s been a year of winter, God sent his Son to give us hope. Hope for a better tomorrow and a hope for eternity.

May the “Merry” in Merry Christmas be a hope for a brighter tomorrow, a gratefulness for what we have had in the year’s past and a resolve to appreciate the little things in life that we miss and hope to have in the future.

Merry Christmas to all!

Blessings!
Debbie

Debbie Futhey - Floral designer at Memories of Home