A True Christmas Miracle

This post may be a little more personal than most of my posts but I feel it is important to share. This Christmas I was able to witness a true Christmas miracle with Zachary, our 7 year old. From day to day I struggle with Zachary. No matter how much time I spend with him he feels it isn't enough, no matter how much I tell him or show him that I love him, to him, it isn't enough. He struggles from hour to hour not feeling like he measures up to be his best, or when he makes a mistake or a poor decision, he'll say, "I'm different than the rest of my family, I just don't deserve to be in this family, or you shouldn't love me." For this reason, I pray daily that I can find a way to get through to him, that Heavenly Father will provide a way for me to let him feel and see that he is enough in our eyes and that we all make mistakes. On Christmas Eve we went to my mother's house like we always do and we started with our annual traditions. Zach was in one of his moods and was feeling left out. My mom sat all the grand kids down and was reading to them her annual "Teach the Children" story but Zach didn't want to be apart of it so he stood off to the side while the other grand kids were enjoying the story. I went up to him quietly to ask him nicely to please come and be apart of this, "It's Christmas" I said, "and I don't want to look back and remember that you weren't apart of it, please come and sit with me" he reluctantly did so but still wasn't very happy. Then Santa came and he sat on his lap and seemed happier, so I thought, he opened his gift and of course it wasn't something that he was thrilled about, so I quietly tried to explain to him that he needed to be polite and we would discuss the present later and I told him to try to remember, Christmas isn't about the gifts you get, it's about the feelings and the gifts you give! Then it came time for the traditional Nativity, when my Dad reads the scriptures and all the grand kids dress up and play the parts of the nativity. Zach immediately spoke up for something and then changed his mind repeatedly, after which I had already assigned the costume to someone else, so of course he was mad! In fact I was so angry at this point, that I can't even recall if he ended up being in the Nativity or not, all I remember was getting the costumes on everyone and trying to deal with a moody son "whose life was being ruined because he couldn't be who he wanted" and I kept thinking am I ever going to be able to look back and think, wow, what a wonderful holiday. I was definitely NOT feeling the Christmas spirit at this point. After the Nativity we did our family gift exchange. A few weeks before Christmas my sister-in-law, had gotten the inspiration to write all of her nieces and nephews a personal letter this Christmas in lieu of a Christmas gift. Her time came to pass them all out. She called them up individually and gave them a hug and told them that the letter she wrote was ONLY for them (and if they wanted to share it with their parents they could) and that they should pick a quiet place in the house and go and read it. So, off Zach went, he chose to sit under my mother's grand piano in the other room, which was a spot that was directly across from the room that I was in. (so, I was still able to see him.) I was still trying to get over my frustration with him from earlier so I didn't offer to go with him, which now that I look back was exactly the way things were suppose to happen. About 10 minutes passed and he was still sitting there and I was impressed upon by the spirit to go to him. I thought it was because maybe he was having a hard time reading it, but as I crawled under the piano I instantly saw tears that were falling from his cheeks onto his letter. I sat right beside him and put my arm around him and read the letter out loud to him, more for my benefit than his, he knew exactly what it said. As I was reading I felt the spirit so strongly sitting next to my troubled little boy, the letter said a few wonderful things but the thing that he felt from it the most was when she so inspiringly wrote ... "I hope you understand how much you are loved. Your parents, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, we could go on for pages and pages if we wanted to list all of the people who love you. You are a brilliant child of God. He loves you most of all-always remember that." After I was done reading the rest of the letter to him, I held him and we cried and then he told me that this was the best Christmas gift anyone could have ever given him. I explained to him that he was feeling the Holy Ghost and that the Holy Ghost was helping him feel that way to let him know that what he read in his letter was true, that he is loved by everyone, and that Heavenly Father wanted him to feel his love and that he was feeling the true Christmas spirit. He then went to the bathroom and wiped his tears and told his Aunt how thankful he was for his special letter. I don't think that she knew when she wrote that letter that it was an answer to my prayers, that I was able to witness a Christmas miracle with Zach that evening, and that what she said to him was able to touch his heart and help him feel the spirit in a way that he so desperately needed. I know that things won't be perfect from here on out, but I can look back on this Christmas and remember a time when Zach was able to feel how much he is loved and remember a time when he felt the spirit so strongly all on his own.