The Mother of All Holidays!

Coree Keenan is our dear friend with an amazing laugh and smile that will warm the coldest of days. An accomplished photographer, she captures the beautiful and candid moments of life best through her camera lens. She has begun a new journey with God – asking Him to reveal Himself to her through signs. Look how it played out right before her eyes.

In my family the mother of all holidays is celebrated on December 15^th…ten days before the rest of you all celebrate that little thing you call Christmas! To us, a day bigger than Christmas is my little brother’s birthday.  This year Todd turns 31.  Todd loves birthdays in a major way. We still love Jesus and adore the birth of Christ, but December 15 comes first and we celebrate it BIG.

Todd has a super fancy extra little chromosome that gives him Down Syndrome. It is the best part of my little brother. He is full of love and joy and excitement and zest for life! Celebrating his birth is pure joy. We were not there for his birth…so we over celebrate for each birthday. His excitement for this (and most things) is contagious.  You can’t have a regular day with Todd. There is no regular with him. The kid runs hot. There is an extra throttle in his engine.

When he turned 16, we took Todd to drive go carts. There was some confusion, he thought that they were bumper cars…and there is a good reason why he will never drive a real car. There was an “incident”…but everyone survived and my siblings and I just giggle about it.

When he turned 21 we played bingo. Not the same thing as gambling…but we had just as much fun.

All good birthdays are celebrated with chocolate cake.  It is a Todd rule. There are lots of Todd rules. All dinners begin at 6pm…not a minute earlier or later. Similarly, all desserts are eaten at 7pm. All greetings contain hugs. All birthday cards contain “a dollar for your new wallet” whether your wallet is new or not.

This year I had decided that we would throw back to the days of watching a show on Nickelodeon where people ended up with pies in their faces. A new board game came out this year called “Pie Face” …just in time for Christmas. But that was part of the problem. They were selling out!  Black Friday shoppers were faster than me.  I could not find this game ANY WHERE! Target has sold out of them in Sacramento and was not selling them online.  Amazon sellers were showing that they do not have them available for shipping before Christmas…and I needed mine TEN days BEFORE that silly little holiday…for the mother of all holidays. No luck at Kmart, Walmart nor CVS. I was out of ideas.

C’mon God!  Where are you in this?

I began to go to plan B in my mind. We would throw whipped cream tin pan pies in each others’ faces. We would skip the little roulette part of the game and the anticipation of when the little pie would flip up in your face…but that was the fun part. I couldn’t just give up the hunt. That is not like me at all. I never give up. But I had already driven to a store 45 minutes away and come back from Target empty-handed, even though the internet said that they had one in the store. I had given up. I wasn’t going to find the game. That was ok. I could loosen up. I could adjust the plan. We could still have a fun party.

But then, I got a text from a friend saying that one had been found in a Walgreens…hmmm. I started calling Walgreens stores and I found ONE store that had ONE. The last one and they would hold it for me until I got there.  BIG SMILE ON MY FACE!  I  practically skipped into Walgreens to pick up the board game that would save Todd’s birthday. The kid full of joy and life, who has started to tell me,”I pie in your face.”  That kid. He is a trash talker. We have taught him well.

Thank you God! Way to show up for the details.  Thank you LORD for putting me exactly here in exactly this excited state ready to celebrate Todd with my whole heart and all of my joy and all things good.

And the lady in line in front of me was talking quietly to the cashier and she checked out and then walked three steps towards the door and the alarm buzzed. Something in her bag set off the alarm. She had just given the money to the cashier so it was fine…the cashier said to her, “The Plan B is sensitive. It has the security chip in it.”

And the breath was sucked out of me. Time stood still.

Plan B’s come in all kinds of ways. I thought about how thirty-one years ago Todd’s birth mother’s plan b was adoption. I am so grateful for that. Grateful that my mother was ready for him. And she had prepared her family for him.  And we were excited for him.

And that is where I see God in this story.

I see God in my mother’s love for her family. We have always joked that Todd is her favorite child. He is. He is my favorite, too. Every one of my siblings would say the same. He is our favorite. Not everyone *gets* Todd. Fewer people *got* it thirty-one years ago.  So today I say a little prayer over all “plan B’s.” They may not feel like your favorite now…but give them some time … and a whole lot of prayer. And watch God work.

-Coree