A
Christmas Day Memory – 2015
I
remember my first Christmas as a Christian. I was living in New Jersey and my housemates
were all gone to their family’s homes. I
wasn’t sad to be away from home, more bored really.
Across
the road from my house lived a woman my age with a son who was just over
12-months old. They too were alone for
Christmas and we met for an awkward Christmas lunch. We didn’t really know each other but we were
neighborly enough to share a meal together.
I
pieced together her situation. She was a
young woman with a baby whose father was out of the picture. She worked at a gentleman’s club in Newark and
if she had family she never mentioned them.
We talked politely over lunch, we agreed to do a movie or something in
the future and I left. That afternoon I literally
wept for her and her son. Being with her
had reminded me of how destitute the human situation could be and realized the spiritual
shockwave of Emmanuel (God with us) on that first Christmas morning.
While
I wept and prayed for the woman and her son I recognized the very real hope of
the spiritual in our physical world. For
in the babe in the manger life had been breathed anew in the sons of Adam.
21Again Jesus said,
“Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending
you.” 22And
with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy
Spirit. (John 20:21-22)
Over
the next few months we went to see a movie or two and she came to church with
me but then she moved on. She went to
another state and I never heard from her again.
My prayer this morning is that she knows the reality of Christ in her physical
life and the Spirit in her soul.
No comments:
Post a Comment