Help for the Holidays

I recently read this in my "Stepping Stones" newsletter which I get quarterly -- a Christian support system for Couples facing infertility or pregnancy loss. I wanted to share it with my blog visitors today.

I share it today because we just had Thanksgiving and Christmas is right around the corner. I urge everyone of you to PLEASE try to remember the hurting during the holiday season. I know our church bulletin is full of upcoming Christmas events for the whole family. But don't forget that there are small families -- 1 and 2 people big. There are singles and widows and the childless who often feel abandoned. Try to remember them in your activities. Trust me: they can use it!

This story deeply touched me because I know the pain of "children events" at church and how difficult church can be when you feel family-less, especially around the holidays. Don't get me wrong. Church is wonderful. However, it is a very family-oriented place, and I want to encourage everyone to look outside of your own problems and think of other people and what they might be hurting and feeling during the holiday season. I'm not just talking to others. I'm talking to myself as well.

Let's remember that Christ came for the hurting: the sick and the injured, the lonely and the fatherless. That is what we are remembering at Christmas this year. This is truly what the season is about.

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"Oh come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant," sang the children's choir from the front of the church. But, I felt anything but joyful or triumphant. Despite the Christmas lights glittering the sanctuary's ceiling and the candles behind the pulpit, darkness hung over me.

Of all the little girl pulling restlessly at their dresses and of all the little boys standing tall and proud behind starched shirts, none were mine. no little eyes searched the crowd looking for me ... No little fingers waved a way in my direction ... No little voices called Mommy.

Barren, the Bible named me: a cold, empty word. I hated it not so much because it described my womb, but because it revealed the feelings of my heart -- especially at Christmas time, when families gathered, mothers baked sugar cookies, and children counted the days until they would tear open gifts from mom and dad.

Barren, the word haunted me now as I sat in the back pew and wished for the hundredth time that Christmas didn't hurt so much. But, it did.

Christmas, it seemed, was a time for families. And Joe and I, with only our two dogs, did not constitute a real family. At least I didn't think so. And neither, it seemed, did anyone else. "When are you two going to start a family?" we heard all too often.

I sighed and closed my eyes, wishing I could block out the singing voices reminding me of what I longed for but couldn't have. "Joy to the world," they caroled in tones loud enough to pierce my defenses.

Clapping broke out as the kids finished their final song. With sweeping bows and stifled giggles, the children scampered to a wide box in front of the pulpit and pulled from it sprigs of mistletoe. My throat closed as the children trotted toward the pews and presented their parents with the mistletoe. I dropped my gaze.

"M-m-merry Christmas," I heard a timid voice come from beside me a moment later. I looked up to see eight-year-old Caroline handing her piece of mistletoe to me. "For you," she whispered, then handed me the mistletoe, turned, and hurried toward the door.

A strange mixture of sorrow and warmth flooded me. "Thank you, "I choked, too quietly for her to hear me.

There, in my lap, lay the small piece of mistletoe. It was such a small gift, so simple, so plain.

As simple, perhaps, as a baby wrapped in rags and lying in a feeding trough. As plain as the Song of God born in a stable full of animals. A gift announced, not to the movers and shakers of Bethlehem, but to a few Gentiles in the east and a bunch of shepherds working the night shift.

I held the mistletoe close to my heart. If animals and shepherds were remembered on the first Christmas, maybe the childless, and the hurting were remembered this Christmas too.

Perhaps God was telling me that Christ was born for people like me, for "have-nots" who, through the simple gift of Christ, are welcome into the family of God.

Adapted from Empty Womb, Aching Heart by Marlo Schalesky, Bethany House Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2001