Thanks to my mother, I’ve always known the Christmas story. I was, as they say, “raised in church”.
My father was a laid back gentleman: quick-witted and understated. But my mother was a spirited lady, as anyone who knew her would testify, and although her husband and four sons towered over her tiny five-foot frame, she remained large and in charge. She wielded authority through a constant state of “harrumph”. She would bluster around our home muttering barely audible threats, like steam escaping from a tea kettle, “If you don’t straighten up, I don’t care if it hurts my bad back, I swear I will turn you over my knee!” Although we maintained an inherent love and respect for her, it was difficult to not snicker aloud—which, as you might expect, only fueled the slow burning embers of her inimitable spirit.
Fast forwarding to her later years, after my father and two older brothers had passed away, the mantel of care for my aged mother quietly passed to me. Now just as she had once cared for me, I was caring for her; an awkward role reversal for us both; a familiar turn of events for many of you as well.
She had aged into inactivity, which proved to be another difficult concept for both of us to grasp. But it was only during this time of my life…of her life…as we sat together for hours that she began to uncover the stories of her youth. And as the final scenes of her life played out, like the last chapter of a long novel, I began to appreciate her as she truly was: a complex person and not merely my mother.
As we sat together, she quietly began to speak her childhood memories; stories I can only assume were accurate, although often dimmed by ninety-one years of cerebral storage, none the less still very real to her.
She looked past me and into a previous time as she talked of her childhood. Her lip often quivered, not from age but emotion, and she spoke as if I wasn’t in the room, as though she was moderating a movie visible only to her. She described a little girl who consistently experienced harsh criticism from her parents; repeatedly told she was not a wanted child and the reason her parents were never happy together.
Her mother’s low-grade anger, which became the centerpiece of their dysfunctional family, was cruelly thrust upon the young girl’s spirit, implying her birth only frustrated her mother. It didn’t require a degree in psychology to recognize how deeply the brutality of verbal rejection had cut into her young spirit, leaving wounds from which she would never fully recover in this life.
Those stories became ‘ah-ha’ moments for me, therapeutically revealing why affection had never been her strong suit. I realized how her woundedness had replaced sympathy and compassion with bursts of selfless energy. As my mother, she labored nonstop to provide a better way of life for her sons.
Raising us, she was the master of the threatening mantra: declarations that defied rebellion. Mantras like “As long as I’m your mother you will—(fill in the blank).” And if she was really serious she’d double down with “…even if it kills me.” How you gonna argue with that?
Among her mantra top hits were, “As long I’m your mother; you WILL brush your teeth before bed”; “You WILL take piano lessons”; and (the reason I’m a man of faith writing this column today) “You WILL go to Church.”
And that’s the reason I’m able to say, “I’ve always known the Christmas story.”
It strikes me how similar my mother’s story is to the Christmas story. Jesus was born into a hostile environment; a world that was unkind and unwelcoming.
Matthew 2:13, “After the wise men were gone, God’s angel showed up again in Joseph’s dream and commanded, ‘Get up. Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Stay until further notice. Herod is on the hunt for this child, and wants to kill him”.
When we listen to the entire Christmas story, we hear of his hurt and see his scars. But through the power of forgiveness, like when He says “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”, his life becomes our greatest Christmas gift. Honor your Savior this Christmas and open your heart to His incredible gift of forgiveness.