12 Days of Christmas Guests day 12: Rebekah Roberts

My final 12 Days of Christmas guests is the amazing Rebekah Roberts. Author of Petals, a 5 Prince Publishing release, she truly knows the meaning and spirit of Christmas.

Roses in December

By Rebekah Roberts

They say breaking up is hard to do, but being broken up with is even worse… You begin to think that maybe there will never be beautiful days again.  That maybe your best times were behind you.

 I trudged up the hill, pushing a stroller weighing an easy sixty pounds with both boys in it and I was starting to have that hopeless feeling, thick and harsh in my chest.  

It was Christmas time again, though I wasn’t looking forward to it.  It was a “green Christmas,” which in Oklahoma just means brown.  It was too warm for snow but too cold for grass to stay alive. Everything was dead and dark and it wasn’t helping my mood, or the weight of the stroller. 

He had broken up with me back in July, but it was just then hitting me, what with work and writing and anything else that I could cram into my life: anything to keep me from thinking. 

I looked up into the clear blue sky and asked “why?”   Why did I have to be alone for Christmas, why did I have to go through this hurt over and over?   And that first question came into my mind and heart; would there ever be beautiful things again? 

Rounding the corner, I saw an older couple putting up their Christmas decorations.  They waved at my boys and said how cute they were.  I said, thank you, never sure how to respond, since I am their nanny and how cute they may or may not be wasn’t any of my doing. 

We walked on finding more houses with decorations; some of the houses still had roses growing out front.  Big and beautiful blossoms flowed in the wind.  The petals looked odd in the winter; little speckles of color in all the brown, but they looked even stranger next to the decorations.

Normally, it was too cold to have roses in December.  But this was a special winter, and I suppose a special Christmas, that there would still be blossoms not just alive, but thriving.

I wanted to be happy at seeing them, to be pleased with this gift in the winter, the first of its kind that I had ever seen.   But something in my heart cringed at the sight of my favorite flower, a sight that not so long ago would have delighted me to the tips of my soul.  What once was a joyful gift, now felt like a placating band-aid on my heart, as if God were a guilty husband bringing roses to cover up the hurt in my life. 

We kept walking and the farther we walked the more bushes I saw.  There were new buds on some, and giant full flowers on others.  In all different colors, reds and pinks; whites and oranges, they swayed my way, as if waving to say hello.  I simply grinded my teeth and kept walking. 

The wind picked up and as always my boys began to laugh.  “Cold!” they said, through their giggles.

 “It’s the wind,” I told them.  It was nothing new for them to laugh at the wind.  They thought it was funny the way it blew in their faces and through their hair, making it dance around their heads like the petals on the roses. 

Their laughter touched something inside of me.  They smiled, their blue eyes twinkling.   They didn’t know the harshness of the world yet, didn’t know that the wind could be a scary thing sometimes. They still thought it was something to laughing at.  And their laughter was like a promise of innocence, of something new and sweet and beautiful still being alive in the world.  

A thought came into my head, looking at their perfect smiles, hearing the music of baby laughter: what if there are still beautiful things?  What if there will always be beautiful things, even on the darkest of days?  Like the laughter of children in the wind.

Perhaps the roses, the laughter, the joy of a tiny moment, isn’t God’s way of placating, maybe it is His way of giving a little beauty even on an ugly day.  What if the roses where like that laughter: a promise.  A promise from God, that there would be beautiful things again and always.

Laughing, I reached down and caressed the soft skin of the boy’s cheeks. I kissed the top of their heads and I thanked the Lord for my roses. 

Rebekah Roberts’ obsession with fairytales, romance, and Jesus came at an early age. She knew as a young teen that she wanted to write books for girls that were both fun to read and good for them.

While working as a nanny and volunteering in her church’s youth group, Rebekah continues her mission to write wholesome romances and uses fiction as a platform for The Unfolding Rose Ministries; where she helps to promote true beauty and self confidence in girls.

Rebekah was homeschooled through high school.  She continued her education at Moore Norman Technology, where she studied creative writing. She uses her education to instill a love of the craft in the next generation through teaching writing classes.

Growing up in small town Oklahoma, she loves the old south and history, which finds its way into her writing and everyday conversation with dreams of plantation houses, WWII dances, and Victorian trivia. She has a passion for taking an old story and making it new.

When she is not writing or working with youth, she loves to watch sci-fi movies with family or enjoy a pot of tea with good friends.

Petals is her first novel. www.RebekahRoberts.net