GIFT OF GRACE

This may just be the best Christmas season I have had in a long time....maybe ever! I have been so touched by the fingers of Deity these past weeks..given such sweet and powerful gifts that have left me no doubt that the hands of God work quiet, profound miracles in our lives today. I call them Glorious Impossibles! (I stole that name from Madeleine L'Engle).

(1) My new little great-niece, Stella Grace, is one of those Glorious Impossibles. God lovingly placed her in her mother's womb when the idea of a child had become almost a broken dream. And then...here comes Stella!  GRACE.

(2) Two weeks before her due date, my niece Stella's mom became sick, unusual since the previous nine months had been uneventful. She felt like she was "sick for a reason" and went to the hospital. Her doctor "just happened" to be there. GRACE. He determined the baby was in distress and immediately did an emergency "c" section. The umbilical cord had been knotted. The doctor said, "This baby has a story to tell...how her mother saved her life!" By being sick, and coming immediately to the hospital, my niece saved her baby's life. Had she hesitated, little Stella would have died. Indeed, she was sick "for a reason!" GRACE.

(3) Very shortly, it was discovered that the baby had severe MAS, caused by gasping meconium into her lungs. And Baby Stella, even before she had been held by her mother, was put on a ventilator. And all of us who had rejoiced only a short time before, gasped in fear. Prayers flew up to the throne. God must have been covered in them! Days were grim. Days were better. Days got worse...but now, Baby Stella is being healed. GRACE. Slowly, and thoroughly, God is healing her. And now, 15 days since her birth, it looks like God will soon be placing Stella into the arms of her mother! GRACE.

(4) Twenty plus years ago, a throat surgery took my singing voice. A voice major in college, I had been singing since I was a senior in High school. Classically trained, I always felt closest to God when I was singing. I worshipped in song. To stand and sing the glorious songs of my faith in church was the time I felt completely in God's will. But then, surgery... and the melodies were no longer mine. HOWEVER, God had used these past 20 years to show me new expressions of my passion for Him. GRACE.  

(5) And most recently, I have been teaching a Bible Study at the Renaissance. The ladies have been insisting I sing for them. In spite of all my explanations, and refusals, they continued to ask me.  

Two weeks ago...they reminded it was Christmas soon and as a Christmas present, would I please sing a carol! Well what do you do? You give up and say 'OKAY!" Going to a good musician friend's house one night just to see how bad I was going to sound and what we could do in the way of damage control, 

I picked up the mike and hit every high 'b" and "c"! I NAILED THEM! GRACE.

I was stunned. He was stunned. His wife, one of my best friends, was stunned. Wade was stunned. I can sing! Really and truly sing! I ended up singing not one carol, not two, but three songs...beginning with Amazing Grace...which sums up all of it..God's amazing GRACE...to my niece...to her baby, Stella, my great niece, and to me. I know His Grace is not limited to any season. But for whatever reason, during this season, I have felt it more surely than perhaps ever before. And while my voice isn't there yet, my heart sings the Hallelujah Chorus! GRACE.

     Welcome! The stone plaque has sat on my kitchen counter for years. Through many Christmases, colorful ceramic birds have nested next to votives, burning with the fragrance of the season. How is it today, that I feel like I really saw the word for the first time? Welcome!I heard the silent voice, felt the warmth of an imagined smile...Welcome! Could it be the mismatched holy family that on a whim I placed in front of the stone sign for the first time in 20+ Christmases? Oh, but it has to be! 

      Mary, with her cracked head scarf, handmade from mud by villagers in Guatemala, the sole surviver...of a past Christmas! Mary was widowed the second Christmas she and Joseph and Baby Jesus held the center of the mantel, when the garland came loose and swept away the entire nativity: shepherds, kings, even the angel, but of course, we know angels can’t be broken. They just “grow” new wings and fly away! All the worshippers, along with the One they came to praise, lay in pieces below the fireplace. I literally cried. I had already imagined the gentle fingers, thin and bent with malnutrition, working in the hot sun, molding the only thing available to use-- mud, to create such primitive, but beautiful artistry. I imagined that the price of the nativity could feed a family for many months...maybe years. And now, the precious work of those gifted, gentle hands lay in a worthless heap on my floor. Irreplaceable. 

     The following Christmas, my store-bought, highly polished, smoothly carved, Mary and Joseph once again found themselves separated from Jesus. Unlike the time recorded in Scripture, when Jesus was later found in the synagogue, this Jesus’ parents have never found Him. But I did. And Mary, with her torn head scarf, and lineage of sun-baked mud, now watches over a highly polished, wooden Baby Jesus, whose lineage can be traced to a shelf in a store! Joseph. From another stable, his journey long and unknown, a man lonely for a family, now has one. Much like the Mary from Guatemala, he, too, is made of clay. He bears rough edges, his mudline unknown, but he stands by Mary as they both watch the sleeping Baby, who bears no resemblance to either of them! 

     “WELCOME!” I meant the sign to speak to those who enter my home through the porch door.

Day in, day out...You...whomever you are...enter my home and feel welcomed! 

      Today...it welcomes me! Before a wounded Mary and a lost, homeless Joseph, I am welcome to approach the perfect, shining Baby, who in no way resembles me! I can be part of this nativity. I can go to this manger. I can come with my tattered attitude. I can bring my broken expectations, the bruises in my heart. I can lift up my cracking, pleading voice, and know that here, it is heard. I can fall on old, stiff knees and bowing, look up to see the Shadow of the Cross fall upon me. And I shout what only the heart can cry: HE MAKES ALL THINGS NEW! 

     From the ruins of three nativities, a brand new one was created. From the ruins of my past and present, God created a brand new future for me. And every day, His mercies are new. Like those of old, who journeyed to see “this thing which has come to pass,” I make the weary trip through miles of shopping, boxes of lights and ornaments, rolls of wrapping paper and ribbon, and finally reach the baby, to discover that He has been looking for me! Touching heaven, I stop and whisper to Him as He whispers to me: “WELCOME!”