Merry Christmas.

"Silent night...holy night...All is calm...all is bright..."

This is how I feel right now. I'm the only one on the first floor, so I'm surrounded by peace and light. Candles are spread around, flickering little flames both in the dark dining room and the bright hall. Everything is clean in preparation for more family's arrival, and the world feels in order. My house feels like a little cocoon, where craziness was just a minute ago, but now all is calm and all is bright.

My life feels put together. Jesus was born, and because He was born, we have this holiday. And this holiday is bringing my family together. Family reminds you of who you are. For me, sometimes family brings a question of who I am. Everyone else is so much older than I am, and I am often left feeling very small and wondering if what I say matches the wisdom of their words, or if my life is producing fruit that is as worthy as theirs. I'm not saying that these feelings and thoughts are justified, because they're not at all. They very much have a name, and it is insignificance. What I'm saying is that they are quite lessened this year.

I feel like I'm at a turning point. I'm about to finish high school. Next year, as I set off on whatever it is I will be setting off on, will I be half-way grown up, as if I were going to college, or will I still be a child? Or will it be half way in between? This all plays into the Christmas season because I have often thought about what it will be like to be a grown up in my family. What will it be like to come home for the holidays and talk about my job? What will that first Thanksgiving be like when I bring my serious boyfriend home? What about the Christmas dinner where I'm the one running up the stairs because my baby has woken up from their slumber?

The truth is, this Christmas day, I've been reminded that they are proud of me. Now. I truly feel like a young woman tonight. I feel so satisfied that I cleaned the downstairs for everyone to come. My brother is proud of me that I earned that 98 on the Chemistry test. My dad is proud of me because I just made dinner for the whole family. My sister consulted me about setting up her precious Christmas present for someone else. I'm so glad that I'm making rice pudding for the first time ever, something my brother-in-law loves. My heart lights up when miss Glorie-bee puts that huge smile on her face and looks in my eyes.

I'm ready. I'm ready to be who I am. I'm ready to show my family more and more of that. I'm ready to live the way Jesus made me to live. And I feel serenely happy. Like a feeling that that living is beginning in a new way, inching forward, sweetly blossoming as I sit here tonight surrounded by all that is calm, and all that is bright.