Emmanuel ~ God With Us!

The Christmas story is almost completely hidden among all the trimmings of the holiday season, from political correctness to materialistic expectations to overbooked calendars.  I am guilty.  Do we send out cards that say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?  Will I have enough money to make the holiday season a success?  Have I bought all the ingredients for this party appetizer or that holiday meal?  Somehow we manage to embrace all of the necessary holiday requirements, except one – priority one for the shepherds and the angels and the wise men – the birth of the Christ child.

TODAY’S BIG STORY:  On Sunday, December 11, I transported a frightened expectant mother in full labor to a hospital emergency room!   After a frantic one-hour drive, she and I reached the hospital at 12:21 p.m., and she delivered her newborn son at 12:34 p.m.  While this story is certainly not meant to be compared to the nativity birth, the events of the day helped guide me back to priority one – Emmanuel, God With Us!

The morning began with a big red velvet cake mistake!  I was making preparations for our after-church holiday meal by baking a red velvet cake.  As I removed the cake layers from the baking pans, I was absolutely amazed how round and identical the layers were – symmetrical perfection!  I was getting ready for church and waiting for the cake layers to cool, when I received an unexpected text at 9:19 a.m.  The text read: “I know you are probably at church, but can you text me when you get out of church or when you are not around other people.”  Sensing that something was wrong, I said, “I will.”

The cake layers had cooled, so I began the icing process of cherry pie filling and homemade lemon/cream cheese frosting.  The frosting was thinner than I had hoped and instead of clinging to the cake, the tasty mixture was flowing down the layers and over the side of the cake plate.  When I attempted to move the cake to a larger cake plate, the cake fell apart.  My beautiful red velvet cherry torte was a total disaster.  Then, at 9:42 a.m., I received another text which read, “Okay the reason I texted you this morning is to ask if there is a doctor open today?  I’ve been having contractions.”

Involved with the sticky cake mess, I did not check the text until 10:02 a.m. After reading the text,  I quickly replied, “OMG!! Let me think…I am not going to church!  You need to get to me or I need to get to you!  Can you drive?”

She did not reply, so at 10:05 a.m., I sent another - more urgent - text. “Please tell your Mom!  She and I will get you through this!”  She immediately protested, “I cannot tell her.  No possible way.”

“Then you have got to get here,” I responded. 

The twenty-year-old college student told her mother that she was coming to visit my daughter who was also home from college for the holidays.  At 10:15 a.m., I dumped the red velvet cherry mess into a large bowl and placed the dessert disaster in the refrigerator.  I gathered together bread and drinks for my husband to take to the meal after church.  Then I called my daughter, Katie, who was involved in the fabricated story, and my other daughter, Aimee, who is a nurse.  At 10:19 a.m., my cell phone died, so I had to move my sim card to another cell phone to continue the conversations!

At 10:49 a.m., the expectant mother said that she was headed to my house.  She asked me if I was alone, and I assured her that everyone had gone to church.  She arrived at 11:04 a.m.  Once again, I called both my daughters to help me through the process and to support me during the trip to the hospital which was more than an hour away.   At 11:13 a.m., I called Aimee to inform her that we were leaving my house...the frantic trip had begun.  At 11:26 a.m., I reported to her that the contractions were coming two to three minutes apart.  She insisted that I remain calm (even though I was driving eighty miles per hour).  I began to pray to God that I would not have to deliver the baby without the help of medical professionals.  I prayed that He would keep us safe on the highway – emergency flashers and all!  I prayed for the young mother – experiencing the pain of natural childbirth without any medication or more importantly, the presence of her own mother.  And I prayed for the unborn child.

My phone rang at 11:33 a.m., and Aimee sternly advised, “You have got to tell her mother – right now!  Someone in her family has to know!  I am not saying this as your daughter, but as a medical professional!”  So I pleaded one final time for permission to call her mother, and she answered yes! At 11:35 a.m., I called her mother and calmly told her that we were headed to the hospital.  I delicately explained that her daughter was having a baby – a nine-month secret that had now been revealed!

At 11:56 a.m., I called Aimee again and alerted her that the contractions were now only one minute apart.  I began to panic that we were still twenty minutes from the hospital! My daughter said with a renewed composure, "Mom, God is with you.  You were foretold that this event would happen, and you are right where you are supposed to be.  Just calm down and breathe."

She was right.  On the previous Friday, I had been awakened out of a dead sleep by a frightening dream.  In the dream, the mother-to-be was screaming, "Help me! Help me, please!" She was crying and pleading, as she called me by name.  I awoke at 6:15 a.m. and sat straight up in my bed.  I kept calling and texting her throughout the morning.   When I finally reached her, I told her about the terrifying dream and convinced her to call me if she ever needed my help.  The following Sunday morning, she did.

At 12:21 p.m., we finally arrived at the emergency room of the University Medical Center.  I jumped out of the vehicle and ran inside the emergency room entrance.  I did not scream.  In a quiet deliberate voice, I said, "A young woman is having a baby in my vehicle as we speak."  Immediately, a team of medical personnel wheeled out a stretcher and moved her to the delivery room.  After I parked the vehicle in the visitors' garage and found identification information, I proceeded to the registration office to complete the paperwork.  At 12:43 p.m., I sent my other daughter, Katie, a text. "OMG!!! WE MADE IT!  She is headed to the delivery room!  Thank you for praying! Thank you, God!"

Before I sent the text or finished the admission process, the young mother had already delivered a healthy baby boy at 12:34 p.m.!  AMAZING!!!  I sat in the waiting room and waited for the baby's grandmother to arrive.  I thanked God, again, for His divine presence. I repeated over and over, "Emmanuel, God with us!" What comfort!! EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US!

After her mother and family began to arrive, I announced my departure.  While driving home, I thought about the events of the day.  As I said earlier, I never intended to compare the birth of this baby to the virgin birth; however, I knew I had seen signs and wonders on this December day.  I had been forewarned in a dream.  We had arrived at our destination just minutes before the baby was born.  The delivery was textbook, the newborn was healthy, and a young mother who bore her own secret scorn and private judgment for nine months was now surrounded by the unconditional love and public support of her family.   I looked above the interstate and a perfectly round full moon was leading me home.  Truly…the season for miracles still existed in 2011. I had found my way back to priority one. 

When I finally got home, my husband and I shared stories about the day.  He said, “Oh by the way, your red velvet cake was a huge success ~ the favorite dish of the day!”

I scolded him, “You took that messy bowl of red velvet cake to church?”

He replied, “Yep…and there is one small chunk left!  Evidently people didn’t care what it looked like on the outside!”

The final confirmation:  I had forgotten priority one.  I had seen the cake when it was perfect, and I was disappointed with the end result – broken and messy.  All that had mattered to me was the outward appearance of the cake and what people would think when they saw it.  I had decided to just hide it away in my refrigerator, where only the members of my family or I would know about the regrettable mistake.  I had forgotten the most important thing –  the combination of all those perfect ingredients inside that delicious cake! 

Wow!  Broken and messy…and in the end – red velvet redemption! I looked up messy in my thesaurus, and I found synonyms such as disastrous, tragic, heartbreaking, woeful, and unfortunate; however, I also found antonyms such as blessed, happy, joyous, and wonderful. 


What a perfect Christmas story!  Emmanuel! God With Us!  Welcome to our world, sweet infant child!

Dianne ; )

     

Comfort and Joy!

This morning I was reading a passage from Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach.  The author describes the book as a “walk through the year, beginning on New Year’s Day.”  I have attempted to digest the book as a day-by-day devotion; however, there are the days when I re-read an appropriate passage for the day’s particular need or set of circumstances. 

Today was one of those days. Scrambled or Fried…Scrambled or Fried…I thumbed through the pages frantically.  I had to find Scrambled or Fried.  After about fifteen minutes of perusing the 366 essays, I found Scrambled or Fried on date September 3 (as the pages are not numbered).  Whenever I feel completely crazed and overwhelmed, this is one of the passages that I re-read. 

Scrambled or Fried is an essay about a secret fantasy that many women have, and according to the author, “it focuses on the forbidden.”  I know what you’re thinking.  I thought the same thing, until I read the second paragraph.  The essay speaks of “the overwhelming impulse to disappear without a trace.”  She calls this fantasy of running away, “the waitress fantasy.”

When I first read the essay, I felt such a therapeutic release of guilt!  I am not alone! The author says that “contemplating a plan of escape is an imaginary mechanism to let off steam from life’s pressure cooker.”  She also writes, “When you think you can’t take it anymore, a life that revolves around asking customers if they want their eggs scrambled or fried holds a certain appeal….When our waitress fantasy surfaces, we’re physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually exhausted by the struggle within and without that pulls us in a hundred different directions.  We’re seriously wounded by the ancient enmity between daily life and the Great Work.  Band Aids don’t work anymore.”

I wish that I could copy the entire passage word for word as Today’s Big Story.  Every time I read it, I feel a cathartic response, as though I have been to a physician.  Over the years, I have entertained the fantasy of running away – my own disappearing act.  I call my imaginary impulse to bolt, “the Blowing Rock fantasy.”  

Years ago, I read a book series by Jan Karon entitled the Mitford series.  We were living in "the Big House" at the time, and I internalized my own imaginary escape and retreat as I read the stories. The books are based on the lives of normal people in the fictional mountain town of Mitford – a setting based on the actual postcard village of Blowing Rock, North Carolina.  OMG!  How does a person begin to describe Blowing Rock, North Carolina?  Even before I had the unbelievable opportunity to go there three years ago, Blowing Rock (Mitford) had become the destination of my run-away fantasy. 

The methodology of my fantasy has always been the same.  I begin by literally searching the online classifieds of Blowing Rock newspapers and printing out jobs for which I could apply.  Then, I check out temporary residences where I could live.  My fantasy evolves to include a small store front building that I eventually buy to open a children’s book store. (I actually have a picture of the building and a telephone number to call.) By that point, I have moved into the second story apartment above my little shop around the corner.  After a couple of hours of indulging my Blowing Rock fantasy, I float back down to reality, face my real life to do list, and start the process of bringing order to chaos.

The date that I am writing this blog is December 8, so I instinctively flip the pages to read today’s passage. The essay is entitled Tidings of Comfort and Joy.  The first sentence reads as follows: This is the week that women’s shoulders begin to droop as their list of holiday “should do’s” becomes as long and heavy as Jacob Marley’s chains.

The author continues, “For many women, this is the season of misery and angst:  tears, tantrums, screaming, yelling, hustle, bustle, cash conflicts, royal-pain relations, and holiday humbug.” Wow! I thought, how fitting!  What better time for a run-away Blowing Rock fantasy than the frenzied, materialistic, chaotic rush of the holidays!  As a matter of fact, my last fortune cookie read, “An enjoyable vacation is awaiting you near the mountains.”

I have said so many times this past year, “I can only do so much.  I am only Human.”  But Christmas reminds me that I am not only human.  I am Spirit, also. In the anthology, The Book of Comfort, Elizabeth Goudge asks herself the question, “What are the sources of comfort to which we turn in what Saint Augustine…calls our mortal weariness?” The answer, she writes, is that “our existence is as light with comfort as it is weighted with weariness.”  That is not just an answer for the holiday season, but an answer for all our days.  Whenever my human heart is in danger of total collapse from the weight of my own weariness, a heavenly offering of that which is perfect always appears.   The perfect gift may be as small as a pass-along box of earrings or as big as an answered prayer; but I always recognize the Divine lightness that comes with it – a welcomed intervention that brings unexpected comfort and pure joy, whether the source is human or Spirit.  

Oh tidings of comfort and joy!  That is the true message of the Christmas story – a world of mortal weariness existing together with Divine lightness. So, even if I do as much as humanly possible to make the holidays perfect for everyone, I can never make the eternal Christmas story more perfect than it already is.  In the last sentence of today’s essay, Evelyn Underhill is quoted as saying:  I do hope your Christmas…has a little touch of Eternity in among the rush and pitter patter and all.  It always seems such a mixing of this world and the next – but that, after all, is the idea!

A little touch of Eternity – not an imaginary run-away fantasy – but a good and perfect gift that comes from above.

Comfort and Joy! 

Dianne ; )