The Very Best Gift (6 page)

24
The Crystal Cathedral at Dusk

While we were there for Haley’s 7
^th
birthday, I took her up to the highest row in the balcony.

25
Balcony (center top) Where Haley & I Sat Together 7 Years after Pat & I Sat There

That spot held special meaning for me. Her dad and I had sat in that
same
spot to see
The Glory of Christmas
seven years before. Now, around our dinner table, I told our whole family the story of my first time seeing
The
Glory of Christmas.

I was pregnant with Haley and we lived in southern California at the time. I had always wanted to see
The
Glory of Christmas
but money was tight and we never seemed to be able to afford it. That year I won two tickets to the performance. I was so excited. The tickets I had won were for a specific date and time.
That happened to fall on the day the doctor said our
baby, Haley, might be born.
I
wasn’t
going to let anything stop me from seeing the performance. I was sure the baby could wait, even though babies come when they are ready.

That afternoon, as I got ready for my big night out with Patrick, I started having contractions. (For any children reading this, that is the way a woman’s body starts telling her that it is almost time for the baby to arrive.) I did not want to worry my husband and I certainly
didn’t
want to miss
The
Glory of Christmas
, so I decided not to tell Patrick what my body was telling me. We arrived at the Crystal Cathedral and walked up the stairs to our place at the top of one of the balconies.

26
Mary's Pregnant Donkey Ride Held New Insights While I Had Contractions

My contractions were starting to become stronger; they
couldn’t
quite be called labor pains yet, but I certainly felt them. As we watched the familiar Christmas story unfold before us in this pageant with real animals, I watched Mary ride her donkey toward Bethlehem (the stage at the front of the cathedral.) I focused on Mary more and more with each contraction.
And
with every contraction, I felt closer to her. I
wasn’t
sure who was going to have her baby first: me or Mary.

My respect for Mary and what she went through to bring the Christ child into the world
grew that night. I had never really thought of her physical journey toward Bethlehem. She was a young teen like the girls I worked with in youth group. She was in a strange city and
didn’t
have a place to go. She was away from her mother and father, about to give birth to the Son of God in a dark, cold, lonely stable. Now, for the first time, it dawned on me that she had to be having contractions while riding on that donkey.
So
as I watched Mary and Joseph take their places in the stable, I looked at my watch and noted that my contractions were now consistently less than three minutes apart. I leaned over and whispered to Patrick that we might need to stop by the Birth Center on our way home.

As I sat there watching Mary and Joseph that night in 1990, Patrick and I had also been dealing with another kind of pain and uncertainty. Our marriage
was being torn
apart by difficult circumstances. We were doing our best to take care of our little family and stay together, but we
didn’t
know how we were going to make it. We had both lost our jobs; we had to move to a new city; we had marriage
problems that hurt us deeply, and even though we were committed to our marriage, we were still uncertain whether our family would remain intact.
But
we had this hope of our new baby coming into the world. We had the hope of the baby Jesus who came into the world to save us from our sins. We had hope.

Part of
The
Glory of Christmas
recited the words of the prophet Isaiah speaking about the baby that was born of the Virgin Mary and laid in that manger in Bethlehem so long ago.

It explained why the baby Jesus came into the
world and why he came when
and where he did. It quoted the Bible:

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son,

and
they will call him ‘Immanuel’ – which means, ‘
God with us
.’”

(Matthew 1:22-23)

That night in December 1990, Patrick and I were able to finish watching the pageant. We drove straight to the Birth Center where I
was checked on
. My contractions stopped that night and Haley was born the next day. Now, in December of 1997, I sat in the same seats where Patrick and I had sat together awaiting Haley’s birth.
But now
I sat here with my beautiful little girl who had just turned seven. Haley loved the live animals. I
didn’t
tell her that “real flying angels” were soon going to fill the skies, singing
“Glory to God in the Highest!”
right above our heads.

27
One of Many Flying Angels in
The
Glory of Christmas

She sat in amazement as the three Magi rode in on live camels; their ornate
head-dresses
making them seem larger than life. Haley strained to see Joseph lead Mary in on a real donkey while the star of Bethlehem shone overhead.
And
as I watched this scene repeated with Haley seated next to me, I recalled how much God had brought us through in the seven years since I had sat there pregnant with her.

In those intervening years, God miraculously supplied the money we needed, gave us new jobs to replace the ones we had lost, helped us forgive each other and mended our broken hearts. He gave us a house in which we made a new home. He gave us
every single thing
we
needed and much more.
And
, I told my family gathered around the dinner table – who seemed to have put the “best gift” competition aside – that brings us to what I believe is the best gift…
The VERY Best Gift.

THE
VERY
BEST GIFT!

My “best gift” is the gift God gave the world in the baby Jesus,
“God with us.”

Here is why I think this is the
VERY BEST
gift:

That baby in the manger was the best gift of all because Jesus was and is God
with us
.

God is with us
when we
don’t
have enough money to get our child the one toy she wants for Christmas. I looked at Casey, and she nodded.
God
is with us
when the dog dies and a little boy is heart-broken. I looked at Taylor and he smiled.
God is with us
when a grown
woman’s
forgotten childhood losses come back to leave her crying on the stairs.