The Christmas Tag: “Glorifying God’s Name from Tragedy to Triumph”

By Linda Atkins

As a parent, you never plan to receive that phone call telling you that your child has been in a terrible car accident and has very little chance of survival. Jeff was on life support for twenty-hours before we came to realize that God’s plan was to take him home to heaven at age nineteen. It was time to cling to our beliefs and trust the Lord as our plans had ended. The title of the book reveals the Lord’s compassion as we struggled to find joy in our first Christmas without our son. The Lord revealed himself in a way we will never forget through a simple Christmas tag. I pray that these words will encourage you to find peace in God when life takes a curve and does not go the way you plan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796016222

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Linda Atkins.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2019901870

ISBN:                      Hardcover                   978-1-7960-1624-6

                                Softcover                     978-1-7960-1623-9

                                eBook                           978-1-7960-1622-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/14/2019

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1     Off to College

Chapter 2     Devastating News

Chapter 3     Our Fight to Save Our Son

Chapter 4     LifeGift Takes Over

Chapter 5     Returning Home From Lubbock

Chapter 6     Funeral Plans

Chapter 7     Back to Reality

Chapter 8     Beginning our Firsts

Chapter 9     Working Through Grief

Chapter 10   A New School Year

Chapter 11   My New Assignment

Chapter 12   Back to Lubbock

Chapter 13   Life Goes On

Chapter 14   The Recipients

Chapter 15   Letters Of Encouragement

Chapter 16   Epilogue

Preface

Starting off the new year in 1990, I began praying that the Lord would let others see Jesus through me. I am not one to strike up a conversation to share my faith with total strangers in the produce department as some of my friends do, so I wanted others to see Christ through the way I loved Him and lived my life. The Lord honored my request in a way I would never have chosen and caught me totally off guard as He called our youngest son home to Heaven.

As I share this story, it is my prayer that each reader will understand the importance of knowing Jesus as their personal Savior. Next, I pray that they will believe that God is trustworthy, has a plan for each of our lives, and will always keep our heads above water on the days we feel like we are drowning.

I want to thank our family, friends and even the strangers who cried and grieved with us, who listened to us pour our hearts out countless times, and remembered us with cards, calls, and gifts after Jeff’s death. Each gesture was such an enormous part of our healing process, and you all were such a blessing. A special thank you to Joyce Dunavant who was my biggest encourager to write this book, and to all of you who have prayed for me as I took a deep breath and started reliving Jeff’s life and death. Thank you, Dodie, for specifically praying for total recall – it worked. A debt of gratitude to Whitney Prosperi for the countless times she read my rough drafts and applied her editing skills and suggestions. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.

Linda Atkins

The Christmas Tag

"It’s because of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is His faithfulness!" Lamentations 3:22-23

Holidays at the Atkins house are all about fun and fellowship with family and friends, especially at Christmas. The excitement of decorating the house, buying a tree, shopping for that special gift, getting together with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and attending the candlelight church service are things we all looked forward to each year.

But that excitement can change in an instant when a family member is no longer with you. Christmas was much harder to celebrate after the Lord had called our youngest son home to Heaven. However, the Lord was compassionate to our broken hearts, and He was faithful to restore our joy in ways we could never have expected.

Christmas of 1990 was one I was hoping would just simply disappear. It wasn’t going to be merry that year because our youngest son Jeffrey wouldn’t be there to pick out the perfect tree and share in the excitement of the holiday season. We would still participate in the real meaning of Christmas by celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, but our hearts weren’t into the festivities and decorations.

My mind raced to all the past Christmases, when Jeff, his brother Jamey, and I would go to the Christmas tree lots to find the perfect tree. We would arrive with a budget, and each son would start looking. Jeffrey always wanted a flocked tree, and year after year, he would find the perfect tree that cost more than we wanted to spend. It would also not be the one Jamey had picked out. After much discussion, we would call Jerry and get the okay to pay the price. Jeffrey would convince Jamey that he had chosen the best one, and we would come home with the perfect tree. As I was reminiscing, the Lord started working on my heart to continue our holiday traditions and trust Him to carry us through our first Christmas without Jeffrey.

Jerry took time off on Wednesday afternoon so we could go pick out our Christmas tree. The perfect tree we purchased sat in our family room undecorated and all alone until Saturday afternoon. While Jerry was watching a football game, I decided it was time to decorate. I went into the attic to get the lights to test so they would be ready for him to put on the tree after the game was over. As I started down the attic stairs with the first bag of lights, something came flittering out of the attic. I stopped and watched as it floated like a feather past me and landed on the bottom step. I reached down and picked up an orange Christmas tag that said, Merry Christmas- To: Mom From: Jeff.

I do not save Christmas tags. I was so shaken that I had to sit down to comprehend what had just taken place. With tears streaming down my face, I grasped the tag and thought of other phrases it could have said, such as "Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings, etc., but it said, Merry Christmas." I determined right then that we were to have a Merry Christmas, one that we would never forget. I knew the Lord would be faithful to carry us through and give us peace that only He could provide. I shared this in our Christmas letter that year to let our family and friends know what a compassionate Lord we have and how He reveals Himself to us in unbelievable ways.

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The Lord continued to meet our needs as the days and months sped by. We were now facing our second Christmas without Jeffrey. It was late one night, and I was wrapping packages and needed a certain color ribbon. I went to the bookcase where I kept bows and ribbons and found none. I wearily glanced at the next bookcase doors to my left. For some reason, I opened them and looked in. There was no ribbon, but tucked under a stack of papers with a corner sticking out, was a piece of faded green construction paper with cotton balls on it. I picked it up and found a Christmas card made by Jeffrey at an early age. Printed large and neatly was our message. Dear Family, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Love Jeff.

The unusual thing wasn’t that I kept the card all those years, because I kept all of Jamey’s and Jeff’s special school papers, but the fact that it was where it was and that I even looked there. Once again, I sat staring at yet another treasure I had found that let me know the Lord was continuing to heal our broken hearts. I was grateful that the message this time wasn’t just to me, but to our family. I again shared this in our Christmas letter to our family and friends.

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Another year passed, and we were starting our third Christmas without Jeff. I was busy preparing for the holidays and for about a week and a half, I had a strong feeling I should go upstairs and look in his folders where he had kept his correspondence, but I didn’t want to! I kept ignoring the urgings until finally I gave in. In the first folder I found two homemade cards. One was a Calvin and Hobbs drawing wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and the other was the one we copied on red paper and used as our Christmas card that year. It was written in perfect calligraphy, and on the front it read: Remember the Reason for the Season. Inside was written, for Jesus Christ was born on this day! Have a Merry Christmas!! Jeffrey Atkins. Again, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and felt a little ashamed it had taken me so long to obey that inner prompting.

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As the fourth Christmas approached, I had a friend keep calling to see if we had received our special message yet. I kept telling her no, I wasn’t expecting one. I felt like