One Little Child

Every time Christmas rolls around and I see the snow fly and the decorations going up I remember one special little moment of a Christmas time not too long ago. Our family had been invited to participate in the setting of a live nativity scene as part of a larger crèche exhibit. Our large family was able to portray Mary (pregnant even), Joseph (with a nice beard), shepherds, wise men, and even a couple of angels. Our baby was two years old at the time and was not quite right for the baby Jesus, so we used a doll. We were placed in a nice, quiet room of the church where people could come to look in and contemplate the meaning of Christmas.

It had been a typically hectic time of year for us. Performances, concerts, family visits and shopping all served to cause me to be thankful that in this one moment at least I could sit calmly and just think. It took some time after arriving to get the children all dressed and ready for display. Some of my little Angels were quite little and it was a bit of a job to get everything in place. It was starting to get late in the evening so some of the younger children were cranky and of course, the two-year-old was being terribly two.

So it was that when I was finally able to sit down and be “Mary” it was with a sigh of near-exasperation and relief. The children, who at home had done this scene several times, easily settled into their parts as they tried to recall the Christmas story and began to act it out. I reminded them that we were not supposed to be saying or doing anything, just making a picture, a nativity scene. They were visibly disappointed but cooperated to the extent that they were capable and we began our scheduled time for the exhibit.

There were many different reactions to our little scene that night. Some people only commented on my husband's excellent beard. Some only pointed at the children and said: “How cute.” Some walked past the room offering hardly a glance. Some came in with large family groups, laughing, talking and seeming hardly to notice us. I felt a little bit like an animal in the zoo. I couldn't say anything, I had to stay in one place and I had a unique vantage point from which to view the varied onlookers.
As our time drew to a close there came into the room a small family. They appeared to be just two little children, their parents and one set of grand-parents. Their small group stood inside the doorway gazing and commenting, when from behind one of the adults peered a little girl, not more than four or five years old. Her eyes were fixed on the manger in front of her as she slowly and with great care walked closer to where the doll was laid. Then, without hesitation, the little girl knelt down and bowed her golden-haired head forward in an attitude of worship and prayer. As she knelt down a profound silence settled upon the room. No one moved or spoke. For a long moment she stayed there, on her knees. Love filled our quiet room like nothing I had ever felt before. To her this was clearly not a show; it was real.

There were thousands of people who came to the church that night. Hundreds of nativity scenes were on display. Dozens of glorious works of art and music were shown and sung. But in one moment it was all dwarfed by the single act of love and devotion of one little child.

Just so, when one little child was born, humbly, those who saw it witnessed the beginning of the greatest act of love this world has or will ever see. Some glance and pass by, some come in, laughing and talking all the way, and some see it for what it is and offer their true devotion and love. What else do we really have to give?

What It's All About

On Christmas Day six years ago we were snowed in and expecting our twelfth child. Labor had begun in the early morning by the time I realized that it was snowing again and I worried whether or not everything would be OK. Since it was Christmas Day I couldn't help thinking of another woman a long time ago who had a baby under less than optimal conditions.

Our family had experienced several setbacks during that year and we were struggling to make ends meet, find a better job, keep our home and raise our large family. But we knew that this little baby was special and we rejoiced in the knowledge that he was coming. We knew he was a boy and when it came time to discuss the names for the baby I had a dream in which my husband told me the baby's name. When I awoke, I felt that it wouldn't be fair for me to just say, “Hey, I had a dream and his name is going to be ____.” I thought it would be better if he came up with the name and it just happened to match the one he told me in my dream. So I waited... and waited... and waited. Finally one day in October, two of our children came bounding into the room where my husband and I were sitting. With grinning faces and much enthusiasm they announced that they knew what the baby's name should be.

I looked at my husband and he looked at me. This had never happened before so we didn't quite know what to expect. I asked them to tell me what they thought the name should be and they assured me with all the confidence of youth that the baby's name HAD to be John. I didn't know what to say to them, so I looked at my husband again. He, of course, was unruffled as usual and made no immediate response. I on the other hand was speechless. When I did not respond right away to the announcement, the children became worried and upset. The younger one began to cry and say that the name just HAD to be John. I asked them how they knew. They explained a neat little process whereby they had been saying all of the current names in the family and 'testing' new names at the end of them to determine which sounded best. But they were as confident as any judge that their deductions were correct.

At this point I was having trouble keeping my composure and deciding what to do, so I left the room. I walked into the kitchen for a drink of water and as I looked over the sink to where my daily calendar sits I read again the short verse written thereon. My heart went to my throat and I took a second look. There on the calendar were the same words I had read in the baby book that very day when I looked up the meaning of the name which my husband had told me in the dream. I was astonished to say the least. When I went back into the room, I showed the calendar to my husband. All he said was, “I know.” The name he told me in the dream... John.

It was only later, as I sat on my bed on that cold, snowy Christmas Day, that I realized the significance of what had happened with John's name. Suddenly, all those stories about Christmas where people are told names by angels, people have dreams warning them of trouble ahead, people are in trouble because they are having a baby, and a woman has to bear her child alone in a stable, came alive for me and I no longer felt alone and worried. I realized all at once that they were people like us with problems like us. Never before had it all felt so real, so new, so true. It wasn't just a story anymore. They were ordinary people like us with an extraordinary job to do and I loved them for it. The dreams, the wise men, the Angels and everything, were evidence of a Father's love for them. I felt loved too.

John came at 9:00 on Christmas night. We were able to get a midwife through all the snow, just in time. It wasn't a stable, and the only shepherds that came were the other children who still had their robe-costumes on from our family Christmas pageant, but the stars seemed brighter when we heard the cry of a real newborn babe on Christmas Night. Two thousand years ago they still had taxes to pay, enemies to forgive, hardships to overcome and burdens to bear, and two thousand years later it's still all about love.