{"id":13755,"date":"2012-12-17T01:37:17","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T06:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/?p=13755"},"modified":"2012-12-17T01:38:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T06:38:06","slug":"12-pearls-of-christmas-day-4-a-mistletoe-medley-by-margaret-mcsweeney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/?p=13755","title":{"rendered":"12 Pearls of Christmas | Day 4 – A Mistletoe Medley by Margaret McSweeney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"12PearlsOfChristmas\"<\/a>Welcome to the 12 Pearls of Christmas blog series!<\/b><\/p>\n

Merry Christmas from Pearl Girls\u2122<\/a>! We hope you enjoy these Christmas \u201cPearls of Wisdom\u201d from the authors who were so kind to donate their time and talents! If you miss a few posts, you\u2019ll be able go back through and read them on this blog throughout the next few days.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re giving away a pearl necklace in celebration of the holidays, as well as some items (books, a gift pack, music CDs) from the contributors! Enter now on Facebook<\/a> or at the Pearl Girls blog<\/a>. The winner will announced on January 2, 2013 at the Pearl Girls blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls\u2122, please visit www.pearlgirls.info<\/a> and see what we\u2019re all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Mother of Pearl<\/i><\/a>,<\/i> Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace<\/i><\/a> or one of the Pearl Girls products<\/a> (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

A Mistletoe Medley<\/b><\/p>\n

By Margaret McSweeney<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have breast cancer.\u201d\u00a0 Those four words my doctor said the week of Mother\u2019s Day 2012 have forever changed my life. Mere months after my fiftieth birthday, I encountered this unexpected \u201clump in the road\u201d and ventured through a major detour after reaching my half-century mark.<\/p>\n

Through this \u201cgrit,\u201d God has covered me with His amazing grace! At the same time of my diagnosis, two books released:\u00a0Mother of Pearl: Luminous Lessons and Iridescent Faith\u00a0<\/i>along with\u00a0Aftermath: Growing in Grace Through Grief.<\/i>\u00a0During this Christmas season, I rejoice that my cancer was caught and treated at an early stage. After six weeks of \u201cdaily radiance\u201d (AKA radiation therapy), I started my daily dose of Tamoxifen to help battle any potential cells that might cause a recurrence. Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers.<\/p>\n

While writing\u00a0Aftermath<\/i>\u00a0and sharing my journey of grief as an adult orphan, I experienced several \u201chugs from heaven\u201d as I discovered family letters, journals, and even a video in which my mother shares her faith. This is a mistletoe medley from my mother\u2019s heart:<\/p>\n

Each Christmas season my father used to go down into the woods behind our home and bring us back some mistletoe. It was a present that my sister and I loved. We\u2019d tie it with bright ribbons and would hang it over several doorways in the house.<\/i><\/p>\n

It was always fun of course for a Christmas party, but it came to mean more than that to us. It seemed to become a symbol of the meaning of Christmas: Love, God\u2019s love for the world that prompted Him to send Christ to become our Savior. Somehow it seemed to enhance our love for each other as a family. And we found ourselves stepping under the mistletoe to give someone a hug or to plant a kiss on someone\u2019s cheek and say, \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

I thought of these mistletoe Christmases during my mother\u2019s losing battle with cancer.\u00a0 I penned my thoughts like this:<\/p>\n

Illness, you ugly parasite!<\/p>\n

Like mistletoe, you\u2019ve entrenched yourself upon my body!<\/p>\n

As you bloom and grow, you feed upon my strength.<\/p>\n

I shall fight!<\/p>\n

Battalions stand by to help!<\/p>\n

My doctor\u2019s scalpel will sever you.<\/p>\n

Modern medicine will shrivel you.<\/p>\n

You shall fall to the ground,<\/p>\n

And I shall stand again strong and well.<\/p>\n

But what if I cannot conquer you?<\/p>\n

If you are with me still<\/p>\n

As my constant, inevitable companion,<\/p>\n

I pray that God will help me<\/p>\n

Learn to live with you in peace<\/p>\n

And somehow discover how you, my enemy\u2014<\/p>\n

Like mistletoe at Christmas\u2014<\/p>\n

Can serve some useful purpose.<\/p>\n

There are times when we cannot rid our lives of things that hurt such as pain or grief, loss, illness, sorrow. Sometimes they\u2019re with us as our inevitable companions and we must learn to make peace with them.<\/p>\n

Those are the times when we can ask God through Christ to help us transform the loneliness, the pain, the grief, the loss-symbolically into something that can serve a useful purpose in our lives.<\/p>\n

May you feel an extra \u201chug from heaven\u201d this Christmas season from the loving arms of our Heavenly Father.\u00a0 God is present, and He knows your name!<\/p>\n

*Text quoted from Aftermath (New Hope, 2012) by Margaret McSweeney, pp 114-115<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Margaret McSweeny is a well-published author and freelance writer for the 411 Voices and the Daily Herald, the largest suburban Chicago newspaper. She is the author of Aftermath, A Mother’s Heart Knows and Go Back and Be Happy. She is also the founder of Pearl Girls\u2122 and the general editor of the Pearl Girls\u2122 books; Mother of Pearl and Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace. All proceeds from the sales of the Pearl Girls\u2122 books go to charity. For the past five years, she has served on the board of directors for WINGS, an organization that helps abused women and their children get a new start in life.\u00a0Margaret would love to meet you too.\u00a0Follow her on\u00a0<\/i><\/b>twitter<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0or friend her on\u00a0<\/i><\/b>facebook<\/i><\/b><\/a>.\u00a0You can also keep up with Margaret at<\/i><\/b>Kitchen Chat<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0or the\u00a0<\/i><\/b>Pearl Girls<\/i><\/b><\/a>\u00a0blog.\u00a0Margaret lives with her husband and two daughters in the Chicago suburbs.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the 12 Pearls of Christmas blog series! Merry Christmas from Pearl Girls\u2122! We hope you enjoy these Christmas \u201cPearls of Wisdom\u201d from the authors who were so kind to donate their time and talents! If you miss a few posts, you\u2019ll be able go back through and read them on this blog throughout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13755"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13797,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13755\/revisions\/13797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daysongreflections.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}