By Lisa 
It feels like Fall today. Finally.
For weeks, we have been in False Fall, when everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line steps outside to check the weather before getting dressed. Many folks go to work wearing sweaters and carrying one on the way home.
It’s been hot.
But today, with all the leaves coming down (relentlessly!), the tiniest bit of a chill in the air (below 70, whoo hoo!), and early darkness with the time change (unnecessary!), Mark started thinking about Christmas decorating.
I am not a decorator kind of gal. I have wondered if Mark is a little disappointed about that. I don’t bake cookies, I don’t play Christmas music until a week or so before Christmas, and I do the bare minimum for decorating.
Last year I didn’t put one single ornament on the huge, magnificent tree he insisted we get.
Before we met, I would throw a couple on the lighted stick tree in the corner of the den. Maybe a wreath or something on the mailbox.
Meh.
I think I may be a Scrooge.
I wasn’t always like this.
Christmas can be a hard time for a lot of people. Unrealistic expectations, family conflict, too busy or not busy enough. End-of-year pressure at work. Add decorating, cooking, cleaning, and managing kids out of school.
I don’t have those issues except the expectations.
Sometimes I feel like I am holding my breath, waiting for some magical feeling to come over me, like the end of every Hallmark movie. The last few years of her life, Mama used to say she wasn’t feeling the Christmas spirit.
She would say she wished Pop was still alive and nothing was the same without him.
I understand that feeling.
I wish things were the same when everyone I loved was still alive.
I often think about how they all would have loved Mark. My Poppy would have loved watching and talking sports with Mark, and Mama would have adored him.
I wonder how different our lives would have been.
But that is a wish, not reality.
After Kay died, I read a lot of books about life after death. After my parents passed, I read more. I got a little obsessed.
Mark and I watched a movie the other night called After Death (streaming from Angel Studios). I recognized some of the stories from the books I had read.
It was a series of accounts of people who had died from different countries, ages, backgrounds. Most all had similar stories. A beautiful light everywhere, perfect love and acceptance, and extreme joy.
Some had dark terrifying experiences. More on that later.
I know my little Mama and Poppy are together now and so much happier. I know Kay is happy and healthy. I know I will finally meet Markie and give him the biggest hug. I know they will all be waiting for Mark and me, and it will be a beautiful reunion. I know this. My head knows this.
I have to get my heart to remember.
I have been looking in the rearview mirror instead of the windshield.
Everything looks smaller in a rearview mirror. Distorted. But look out the windshield, and the whole world is ahead. Heaven is ahead. Or Hell.
And isn’t that what Christmas is all about?
Not the beautiful matching ornaments, or flashing lights or wonderful meals with friends and family.
Just choices.
A tiny baby, who looked so small, lying in a common, probably filthy, horse trough.
Looking out a car’s back window, He wouldn’t have looked like much. Just a poor man’s baby, not even his baby really, born in a barn to a woman who was shamed by society for being pregnant out of wedlock.
But that baby saved the world. Not because of our worthiness but because of His choice. That baby actually created the world. And us. And chose to die so we could be near Him.
Choices. One each one of us have to make.
To believe that the God of the Universe, who created the Universe, chooses to love and care for us immensely beyond what we can imagine.
To believe He allows us free will, to choose Heaven or Hell.
To believe He sent His Son, Jesus, to save us. Amazing. Incredible.
Our choice. Heaven over Hell.
Some call a verse in the Bible the Little Bible because it says everything IN the Bible.
John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
The only choice is to believe. God will do the rest.