Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I love this season. It brings out the dreamer in me. I can remember as a little girl wearing out the old Sears&Roebuck Christmas Wish book. My dreams were never hindered by reality, the lack of funds, or the abundance of children. There were ten of us, counting my parents, living in the white split level house on Larry Lane. In the winter, snow would drift high enough to give us a good start on a fort from which we would mercilessly declare snow ball war on our friends who would all end up in our house for supper.

There was always plenty of cornbread and beans. When it got really cold, Mom would make bisquits and chocolate gravy. Dad always wanted the kids to eat with us. Years later he told a story about the war that made it all too clear. Dad fought with Gen. Patton at the Battle of the Bulge. He saw many good men fall and even once shared the horror of being a sole survivor of an all night assault. I would curl up in his lap and ask him questions. With the patience of Job he would begin to quietly answer until the answer led to a story. I would watch his eyes as he seemingly left the room. I would go with him on those journeys to Germany, travelling vicariously through his tales of wars and castles. I never saw him shed a tear over war until just a few years ago.

We were talking over lunch at a restaurant with a big buffet when it happened. The stroke had been a close call and I guess it just hit us what a treasured hero we might have lost. I wanted to know everything about him while I had the chance. That’s when it happened.

His voice grew quiet and his chin began to quiver. Memories he had carried for years rose to the surface as he began to try to keep his composure. He couldn’t. The dam had burst and it was followed with stifled sobbs and the sound of a deep wailing from his very soul. Between deep breaths and heavy sighs, he shared about having to eat from the chow line. Rations were limitted and under threat of court marshall, you could only take what you could eat. No food was to be wasted, or thrown away, or shared, or else! It was then that this war hero who had lived through unimaginable horror broke down. He said he would get his meal and then see the children, the children of war. They were skin and bones, starved eyes with hollow expresions silently begged him for just a bite off his plate. They ate in silence under armed guard. They were soldiers following orders. The faces of the children never left him. All those years later, surrounded by his own children and the abundance of food, he was able to share what had been the unbearable anguish. We all wept together.

I have never been prouder of my Father. Of all that he lived through and seen, it was the hungry children of war that broke his heart the deepest. All children were welcome at his table and we knew it.

Oh that I could always remember as I sit at the weekly buffet served at my local fellowship, the faces of the starving children. You know, the war weary ones that are all around us. They have lived with fear, dreams blowing up in thier faces, starving for hope and love and just a scrap from our table. Isn’t that why Jesus came in the first place? Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? The Father just wants to be surrounded by the children. He wants to feed them, to tell them there is coming the day when all wars will cease. I can almost hear the voices of the heavenly host echoing through the land.

“Peace on earth, good will to all mankind”.

There are very simple things on my plate this season. Love like crazy, give like there’s no tomorrow and with every prayer, every hug, every smile, a portion of that which I have so richly received might be shared.

Merry Christmas!