Angels

Today was Maddie's Christmas program at school.  She's talked about some of the songs they were practicing, the church sanctuary they practiced in and mentioned that we would hear about baby Jesus, but she didn't share most of the details with me.  Donna flew in a couple days early so that she could attend the program and my mom came as well.  I pretty much melted when the kids came parading in and they were each dressed up and my Maddie was an angel!  I asked her afterwards if she knew she'd get to wear a halo and wings and she said it was a surprise that day which I believe because I don't think she would have been able to keep that to herself.

The pastor of the church gave a lovely welcome and prayer at the start which made me so happy.  We picked her school not necessarily because it was affiliated with a church, but the fact that we have observed the teachers and pastor taking advantage of opportunities to work in little lessons from the Bible and routines like praying before eating has been a lovely benefit.

What lucky girls to have two doting grandmothers!

I got such a kick out of all the moms and dads snapping away (me included, obviously).

When Maddie's finger went in her mouth I got nervous because I realized she was nervous.  I was certain she would bail out of walking up the aisle to the front, but I was wrong.  She sweetly folded her hands and walked up with the rest of the "host" of angels.

Mary and Joseph with their donkey

Getting ready to walk up

I wish this picture wasn't blurry, but it was too sweet to not include (at least that's how I felt).

 

 

 Doing hand motions to Away in a Manger

 

I know that's a lot of pictures, essentially of the same shots of Maddie, but forgive a mommy who is completely smitten with her little girl.  It was our first experience with a school program and I was pretty much bursting with with happiness to see Maddie (who can be shy and nervous) happily singing with her classmates and listening to her teachers.  I have videos, too, which I may post once I get them downloaded.  But who knows how long that'll take and I couldn't wait to share these pictures.
PS All this talk of angels with Maddie (along with her comment that angels always wear dresses which I think is theologically suspect, but not something I felt I needed to counter her on :) made me think of two things.  The first is the book The Glorious Impossible by Madeleine L'Engle.  You must read it.  (It's sadly out of print which makes it hard to find.) In fact, I'm going to make it a point to re-read it this week.  It's illustrated with Giotto's frescoes from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua and is the story of Christ's life (as told by Madeleine, anyway).  She opens with this:

An angel came to Mary.  A fourteen-year old girl was visited by an angel, an archangel. In Scripture, whenever an angel appears to anyone, the angel's first words usually are, "FEAR NOT!"--which gives us an idea of what angels must have looked like.

So, I think probably Gabriel did not look like Maddie!  The second thing I thought about was Craig's sermon from this past week.  You can listen to it here.  Have you ever thought much about when the angel said "Fear not!" and how Mary responded?  This is a good time of year to ponder it!