Once there was a family of six: a handsome father, a redhead mother, a sole princess girl, and three little wrestling and running boys.
The handsome father, he worked in two places – one a large company, the other a church. In both places, he worked with numbers… lots and lots of numbers. In the free moments, you would find him completing a half marathon, quiet with a book, or very lately, working in his new garage.
The redhead mother spent the days holding the pieces together… pieces of laundry and food and school and sometimes, yes sometimes, even silence.
The sole princess girl, just a second ago a babe in arms, was suddenly eight and tall, and already a fast runner. She was never so happy as when she was running… just like her father.
The oldest of the wrestling boys was five, nearly six, and started wearing glasses to see, which made him look wise. He began the school journey and stretched his legs at running to try and beat his sister, and if he could, would choose to be buried under a gigantic mound of Legos forever.
The middle boy, with his lightning scar and white head, also began his school journey, but with special help and the fulfillment of his special wish… to ride a bus. He continued, at every turn, to live up to his name and found his way through life in a never-stopping, never-settling way.
The baby boy, a baby no more, stood nearly as tall as the middle boy, with wide shoulders and stance that spoke of having older brothers and being ready and willing to throw the first punch. And yet, he would sit quietly with a book for the longest time and everywhere he went, he looked for horses.
This family of six were wanderers. They left their tiny space when the word “cancer” was first spoken and lived with grandparents for help as two years came and went. They decided to sell their tiny space and pray for more room close to everything held dear, and the tiny space almost sold three times and they prayed for wisdom to know… and then the tiny space, their first little home, sold and they were led to the perfect little blue house near everything held dear and so, wanderers no more, they moved and settled in the early Fall as the leaves began to change.
And in the first hours of owning the little blue house, the call came that something was growing again under the lightning scar in the white head… and the family stopped and prayed for moment-by-moment grace to find the joy in the every day as they waited six weeks and checked again, and then six more and again.
And by the time this story rests in your hands, another check will have come and gone and a course of action will stand in front of the family. But they put aside the fear and in grace, choose faith and yes, even joy for their family and their boy, and the root of it is found in this season and in another little boy, born thousands of years earlier. This stable-born boy would grow to be the Savior and Lord and, bloodied arms stretched wide, would triumph over sin forever and ever, and make a way for death to have no victory or sting, and in this boy-turned-forever-King, there was and is hope and joy, and in this the family of six, in their little blue house, rests secure. They hope and pray the same for you.
[This is the text of the Ewoldt Family Christmas letter that was mailed in early December, 2014 – Thank you for walking this year with us…moment by moment.]
