Mommy Life

December 24, 2007 11:07 AM

Christmas - Christ is born for you!

I'll never forget my first Christmas as a Christian. It was 1987 and I was 39 years old, on my second marriage, helping my husband build his business while raising five children - my first two daughters Samantha Sunshine and Jasmine Moondance - plus three boys Tripp and I had produced in just five years of marriage: Joshua Gabriel, Matthew Raphael and Benjamin Michael.

My previous celebrations of Christmas - nearly 40 of them - had run the gamut from sad and lonely to more recent Norman Rockwell. But never had there been a Christmas like this: a Christmas where every carol - and I was the one who always knew every word of every verse - took on a transcendent glow as though they'd all been written just for me.

Oh - but that's the thing! They had been written just for me! That feeling - which I never could have explained intellectually or theologically then - was as real as the ground beneath my feet. No nonbeliever could have talked me out of the experience I had of being loved and healed by my Heavenly Father, though it would take me years to grow into the responsibility of sharing that experience in an intellectually meaningful way.

The carols were written for me. The scriptures - the prophesy and the history - were written for me. Christ was born for me. He died for me. And he rose for me. That is the mystery, isn't it? That God loves us each as individuals and sent his Son not to redeem humanity en masse but to provide the opportunity for each of us to accept redemption in our personal lives - no matter how hopeless they seem.

I still cry when I think of God's enormous love for me. That He saw a lost and lonely little girl who grew up to be a woman who seemed condemned to perpetuate the cycle of sin - and that He never gave up on me. Others gave up but He never gave up. What incredible love!! And what an incredible example of how we can learn to love each other.

While many things changed for me in a heartbeat when I accepted Christ, there were other things that have taken time. One is not to get angry at people who hurt me but to see them as God sees them, as God saw me. There are so many people out there filled with confusion and hurt and despair. This time of year seems to bring a lot of that to the surface. I have found myself on the verge of tears quite often thinking of - and praying for - those who need emotional and/or spiritual healing.

Two vignettes from my past will show you what I mean:

It is 1961. My life so far has been a jumbled mess. At 13, I've lived in 10 different places from Kansas City to Atlanta to Alaska to California to Washington DC. My father left when I was six and my mother put me and two brothers in a foster home where we were physically and sexually abused. I've just returned from living for a year with my father, 20-year-old stepmother and their baby in Oklahoma City. In the meantime, my mother has married, divorced, had another baby, given it up for adoption, and retrieved him. She works two jobs to support us, but her problems with alcohol and men make her unavailable to us as a mom. At 13, I have full charge of the house - including grocery shopping, meals, laundry, keeping track of my brothers. Tonight is Christmas Eve. My mom calls from the office party - obviously drunk - to say she will be home at 9. At 10 she calls to say she will be home at midnight. I put my brothers to bed and sit and wait - worrying. What about Christmas? What about my brothers opening presents tomorrow morning? At 1:00 my mom has not called and is not home. I feel paralyzed with fear, but I also feel responsible. I break the lock on her bedroom door (my mom always kept her door locked - I think because one of my brothers stole from her) and start looking for the presents I know she must have hidden. I wrap what is there and put it under the tree. Finally, my mom stumbles in with some creepy guy she’d picked up. I lay in bed and worry some more: What will Christmas morning be like with a stranger in our house? But morning comes and he is gone - presumably not interested in sharing the festivities with us either. I am so grateful he is gone before my brothers wake up. My mother's life disgusts me and I vow that mine will look completely different someday. If I had known about prayer, I might have been praying - but all I can do is depend on myself to make this happen.

It is 1979. I am a single mother living in a flat in one of the worst parts of San Francisco. After a couple years of living on welfare and dealing drugs, I have gotten over my drug addictions and gotten a job. But my life is still out-of-control as I am addicted to alcohol and men (sound familiar?). I leave my girls on Christmas Eve to go out with a guy. We have a fight and I am drunk enough to start making stupid decisions. I decide I don't want to be alone at Christmas, so I come home at 1 and wake up my girls to load them and their presents into our Kharmann-Ghia to drive over to their grandmothers house across the Bay. My mom understands and welcomes us in the middle of the night. The next day we are both hungover. I lie around on the couch all day in between fighting with a boyfriend on the phone. I am 31 years old and despite all my best efforts, I have turned out to be only a better-educated version of my mom.

What I didn't know then but I understand now is that my best efforts could not bring peace and joy and grace into my life. While I could change the outer circumstances - getting a good education or trying to have more class than my mom - the grip of sin on my life would always be stronger than my ability to keep my life together. I really needed a Savior.

I got sober in 1980 and began the long march to recovery. I love the 12 steps and think every Christian could profit by working them. In AA I learned to be fearlessly self-honest, to stop blaming others, to make amends, and to continue working those important steps the rest of my life.

But the 12 Steps without a Savior can only take you so far. Which brings me to that first Christmas as a Christian and the absolute assurance I felt that God did all this for me. That He took on human form and went through human suffering to express in a way I could understand His infinite and yet very specific love for me, for Barbara, for his little girl.

Do I wish my life had been different? That He had rescued me sooner? No, never in a million years. What if I had come to know Him before I had become as wretched a sinner as my mom? I meet Christians like that all the time. And I think how hard it must be for them to forgive, to understand, to feel compassion. How impossible to understand "There but for the grace of God, go I . . . " How easy to judge, to think you have all the answers.

See, just as I think the 12 Steps without the Savior can only take you so far, I've seen in Christendom that the Savior without taking steps to recovery and healing can only take you so far. Somehow, each one of us must confront the missing pieces in our lives and forgive as generously as we have been forgiven. I can only imagine how difficult that must be for people who've led "perfect" lives.

I see Christians who've led perfect lives struggling with these issues. If you could only read the mail I receive from moms whose lives have been redeemed in a dramatic way - former drug addicts/alcoholics/strippers who've surrendered their lives to Christ and who are being conformed each day to his image. What an almighty and wonderful God we have - and how deeply and truly and faithfully He cares for us!

My message for you this Christmas is this:

If you are the worst of sinners and need a healing, it is yours for the asking. You don't need to go anywhere or do anything. Just drop to your knees (well, that's optional but it feels right :) and whisper the last two verses of O Little Town of Bethlehem:

If you are a basically good Christian blessed by faithful generations who came before you to give you a good start, know that you are in need as well. Learn to look with love and compassion on those who struggled or struggle still. Allow God to enlarge your hearts and your minds to see the world as He sees it.

The third verse of a lesser known carol, "What Star Is This, with Beams So Bright" -

Love,

Posted in Christmas, Inspiration | Permalink

Comments

Merry Christmas to you and your Family!

Posted by: Erika | December 24, 2007 3:09 PM

Merry Christmas!

Posted by: CharityGrace | December 24, 2007 3:59 PM

Thank you Barbara. Beautiful message.
Merry Christmas.

Posted by: Molly | December 24, 2007 7:07 PM

Beautiful. Just completely beautiful.
Thank you, Barbara.
Your honesty is very healing.
Christmas Eve and I'm thinking the same things...but in reverse.
This is my first Christmas, not just as a Christian, but as a Christian in recovery. I started attending Al Anon last month, and I get to take Jesus with me. It is remarkable what He has done for me through this program.
I see the hurt of the world a little more clearly now, and I understand exactly what you meant.
Thank you for speaking about God's amazing grace this day.
Merry Christmas!

Posted by: Julia | December 24, 2007 9:29 PM

Thanks for sharing your story--I never get tired of hearing accounts how Christ redeems people. I was one of the "good Christians" who came to realize in my mid-thirties that I also was in desperate need of a Savior; my life is being completely transformed! I can't help but think of the hymn by Charles Wesley "And Can it be that I Should Gain". It is one of my favorites, it is rich in theology, and your beautiful post reminds me of the lyrics. Have a beautiful Christmas!!

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Posted by: Yvonne | December 24, 2007 10:59 PM

Thank you Barbara for those words. I often felt my life wasn't redeemed when I first became a Christians because I didn't live that sordid lifestyle and the before and after were pretty much the same. I would visit Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa for their Saturday night concerts and men and women would get up on stage with much the same story as yours. I would think, "Wow, what a change, I wonder why I haven't changed that much? Am I really a believer?"
Well, now, 30 years later, I realize I was like many of those folks, in my heart. It is harder (was) to show grace and mercy when there is little understanding or experience with it. But God works on the heart and that's where the similarities lay. I am so thankful for your story and my own that God taught us both grace and mercy in the ways we needed and could hear and receive it. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Posted by: Barb | December 25, 2007 9:28 AM

I've read your story numerous times, but it's always wonderful to read more about it and to see how amazing and full of love God is.

I grew up in church as one of those "good kids" who rarely got in trouble. But I struggled my whole childhood and adolescence with the belief that God really cared about me. I'd hear stories like yours and wonder if God even noticed me, I was so boring. I was never judgmental; I was jealous. I wanted to experience God's love the way other people did who were (in my mind) much worse sinners than I. Eventually, as my faith crumbled under that pressure, I did make bad decisions and discovered that "loving much because I had sinned much" wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It was painful.

Like you, I don't regret what happened in my life. All of it has been used by God to make me the person that I am. Also, as I have grown in my faith, I recognize that the most abhorrent sins are not the most visible. I also know that God loves each sinner, regardless of what sins that sinner commits - and that His definition of what constitutes a horrible sin can be different from mine. I'm not jealous anymore. I'm grateful that God spared me from experiencing all the consequences that I deserved and still deserve for the sins I commit daily. I also realize that my story has just as much "shock factor" as yours - but all the horribleness is in my own heart. I wasn't ignorant the way you were - I was disobedient. I wasn't crying out for salvation - I was angry at the Savior I had for not doing what I wanted Him to do. Oh, the arrogance!

Stories like yours help to remind me of how deep my own sin is and to be grateful that the God who was with a frightened little girl and brought her to Himself is the same God who puts up with a proud and rebellious woman who needs a Savior just as much as the woman that little girl has become. Sin is the great equalizer, is it not? As I have mentioned (once or twice :-)) in other comments, I am Eastern Orthodox now. I don't know if Catholics use this prayer (although I would assume so, since it has been used by Christians since the time of the Apostles), but we have a prayer that we pray, that can be used at all times, by all people: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. That is my prayer, and it is obvious from your writing that it is your heart's prayer as well.

Thank you for sharing your story and being so open and honest. I appreciate everything you do!

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Posted by: Lucy | December 26, 2007 2:55 AM

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