The Greatest Gift

Christmas with Team Newton is pretty similar to that of any other American family. The youngest children wake the family (this year was close to 8am, probably the latest ever!), we unwrap our presents, and we eat breakfast. The rest of the day was spent playing with our gifts and eating good food. 

I noticed something different however.

It was something in the environment that I could just not put a finger on.

That is, until we were driving around Nashville, looking at lights, and singing along to Brad Paisley’s Christmas Albulm. It was just like every other Christmas evening, but because it was the first time that the entire family was together (although we did point out that we wished Mark’s girlfriend was there a few times) since June, I recognized something that perhaps I had not noticed before.

My parents had given us kids the greatest present of all.

Not the toys, not the activities we participated in, not the education, not the clothes, not the food…no none of these amazing gifts from our parents could ever compare to what they gave us.

My parents gave us a family.

In a family, we understand and accept one another for who we are, not who we were or who we want someone to become. Rather, we take each person as they truly are, and we love them. There are weaknesses and strengths in each personality. However, that does not mean that we try to change or take advantage of one another. Instead, we love them.

The most striking example of this love of the full person happened over Thanksgiving.

Penelope, my youngest sister, has a few social struggles. I discovered in the past few years that she and I share many of these issues. However, her cross is a bit heavier than mine, so I cannot say that she and I are truly the same. Anyway, she was having a difficult time dealing with a situation. Cordelia, the next oldest girl, told us all to just let her be.

“You know, she’s going to have to learn to deal with this stuff just like I had to,” I told Cordelia after the others had climbed in the passenger van.

“Never in this family,” Cordelia replied.

In that moment, I realized how insensitive I had been. Not only to my little sister, but to my entire family. Because we love one another for who we are, no one ever has to deal with the struggles that they have to face in the real world. We are lifted up by our family. The crosses we carry are never removed, but we do not have to feel the weight of our struggles when we are with those who love us.

My family had been loving me through all of my weirdness for my entire life. And they didn’t have a label for any of it.

They just loved me.

No questions asked.

One of my favorite examples of how my family, my mom specifically, can love any member of the family without having to know every single detail was when I first had my heart broken by a boy.

I was in the eighth grade. I had a massive crush on a boy in my class, and I didn’t do a very good job of hiding it. Well one day, he found out about my crush, and being a thirteen year old boy and a member of the track team, he did what any other boy would do:

He ran.

He ghosted me before ghosting was even a thing.

That was the first time I had ever felt unwanted. I didn’t understand why the boy ran away; everyone thought that he and I would be cute together. Even though he seemed to have liked talking to me on the way to our cars and in class, he chose to run away when we could actually be "together." He didn’t want me. 

I was crushed.

My mom asked me what was wrong when I got in her pearl white Toyota minivan. I told her that the boy ran away and cried the whole way home.

When I got home and cleaned off my face from crying, I came down the stairs to see Brach’s Peppermint Ice Cream and a giant bowl sitting on the counter. It is true what they say: the best cure for a broken heart is ice cream.

That day I saw that even when the world did not want me that I would always be wanted by my family. It’s a truth I had always known, but becuase I had never been rejected I had not understood just how important it was to have a loving family. Because my family loves me, I know that no rejection can remove my worth. 

There is never a time when I do not feel like I should not go home, call my family, or not send that odd meme to my family.

I will always know how important I am in this world, and all because I have a family that loves me.

As I have said a hundred times, going away from home was the hardest thing I have ever done. And while my friends are amazing, there are just things that they cannot do like my family. With so many strange things happening and adjustments to make, the homesickness became more and more overpowering.

And just when I thought I was accustomed to Grad School, everything fell apart again.

It all came to a head in seminar. As far as days go, that day was the worst. Class was tiring, my experiment was awful, and a few other unhappy things happened that day. Exhausted, I broke down crying in the back row. My amazing friend Hannah sat next to me and rested her hand on my right quad as my other friend Ben sent a few cute animal pictures.

“I want to go to my lab,” I sniffled, “But not because I love my lab. I just want to go home.”

“Then go to your lab,” Hannah tried to comfort me.

“No,” I shook my head, “It’s not home. I’ll stay here.”

Then, as the talk droned on, and as the pain grew worse, I did the only thing I could think of. I sent a text to the second oldest kid, Mark, and I told him the bare minimum of everything that was going on. He did not need all of the details.

Mark’s response was exactly what I needed.

And I got better almost instantly.

See, because Mark knows me and loves me as we were raised to, he was able to respond in the way that I needed the most. He didn’t need more because he already knew what was right for me, Felicity Newton.

That day I saw that my family was never too far away to love me.

I did not need to physically be with Team Newton to know their love. All I needed was to send a text, make a call, send a snap, and just be me. No matter where I was, no matter what I was doing, I always have a family that was there for me and loved me. I could be away from them physically because they could never truly leave me.

Some people find it odd that I am so close to my family.

They say it’s backwards, too old-school, and some would argue wrong for me to be so close to my family.

Yes it is odd that I am so close to my family, but not because it is wrong. I think the reason why it looks weird for a family that is so large to be so close and so happy is because there is something missing in the world. There is something misssing in our culture that is making it nearly impossible for families like mine to exist.

My parents gave us the gift of a family, but they gave us something more.

They gave us a family of faith.

My parents raised my siblings and I as members of the Catholic Church. We pray together, and we go to church together, and we celebrate our faith for what it truly is, and we learn what we are meant to believe and practice as Catholics. It is through our faith that we learn what it truly means to be forgiving, loving, accepting, and present.

Catholicism teaches that no person is perfect, not even the Pope.

We are all flawed as human beings, but that does not mean that we are not worthy of love and acceptance. After all, Jesus died for all of us, and his best friends were some of the worst sinners. We cannot judge others, but we can love them.

It is through understanding God’s forgiveness that we choose to love one another through our struggles.

Our faith teaches us to see Christ in everyone. We are taught that each person has dignity, regardless of who they are. Catholic means “universal,” so we should be willing to include anyone. It does not matter what their race, gender identity, mental health status, or economic status may be; each person is important.

Every single Newton is different.

And we are loved because of it.

I like to say that the Catholic Church is like Texas. We believe that it is the best, and we want everyone to experience how amazing the Faith is. The Church is willing to bring anyone in because they are a child of God. That love and acceptance does not just stay at home. So, Team Newton, as practicing Catholics, is always welcoming others in to our lives.

That’s why my family knows about all of my friends.

They are important to me, and thus they are important to my family.

The everpresence and love of my family is also a sign of our faith. God is always there for us, so we should always be there for one another.

Even when He feels distant, we can always go home to him. Just like that simple text to my little brother when life seemed impossible, so too can we turn to God at any time.

I recently experienced the joy of bringing someone to Mass for the first time. It was truly a humbling experience to see the man sit beside my friend Lauren and I at a simple Daily Mass. Just as I could always go home to talk to my family, so too could this man be able to sit in the presence of God. Whatever he may have experienced, I do not know and I do not wish to know, but I am eternally grateful to see that God is always welcoming, just as my family is for me and my friends.

How does this all add up to my drive through Nashville? Well, what I realized was that what made Team Newton so special was not just our faith, but what our faith gave us.

Joy.

“Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”~ GK Chesterton

Joy is not just the mere feeling of happiness. It is “feeling of well-being.” It is knowing that all is well. Unlike happiness, which is circumstantial, joy is always possible. Because I was raised to know that there was a God that was always there for me, that always forgave me, and that always accepted me, and because Team Newton practiced the Faith, I knew that they would always be there, forgive me, and accept me.

By being a member in a family of faith, I always know that I am loved.

Therefore all is well.

"You have nothing to fear because you know

God is with you all the way"

~Born on Christmas Day, Brad Paisley

Heaven is not this distant thing that we cannot reach. It is the here and now. All we need is faith. My parents gave us the greatest gift of all: a faithful family. A family that practices their faith is filled with love and acceptance and truth and forgiveness. In this way, we are together with God.

And Heaven comes to Earth.

By giving my siblings and I a faithful family, my parents brought Heaven to Earth.

There is no greater gift.

To any parent that may read this, I would strongly encourage you to bring faith back to the family. It is the greatest gift I could have ever received, greater than any toy or experience. If you have strayed, that is ok; you can always come back to God. It may be hard at first, but trust me, the joy your family will feel is worth every moment.

I pray that when I meet the father of my children that we will have the same strength and faith as my parents to raise a family like Team Newton.

This world needs a lot more Heaven.

And Team Newton found a way to bring it here.

Thank you Mommy and Daddy for the gift that has saved my soul time and time again. I can never thank y’all enough.