A Light for My Path

Last week I wrote about a song called Thanksgiving Song. I talked about how the words encourage me to think about an eventual Heavenly banquet where we will know eternal gratitude.

If you’re like me, you’re still finishing up Thanksgiving leftovers. Maybe you have your Christmas tree up and lights on your house. Perhaps you even braved the crowds and shopped the Black Friday sales. You’ve got Christmas carols streaming in your house and your car.

Or, maybe you barely made it through the Thanksgiving weekend with a broken heart. Maybe when someone suggested “we go around the table and say what we’re most grateful for this year” you abruptly left the room. Whenever you tried to bring up your missing son or daughter, there was awkward silence and then the subject quickly changed.

The last thing you can think about right now is preparing for Christmas. Another holiday without your child in this world. Your life feels pretty bleak. There’s not a lot to look forward to.

In 1872 an English poet named Christina Rossetti published a poem titled “A Christmas Carol.” (Not related to the story by Dickens written 30 years prior.) It was set to music in 1906 and given the name “In the Bleak Mid-Winter.” It became a staple in the English Hymnal.

The lyrics go:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, Whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, Whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: I can give give my heart.

Now, the weather in Bethlehem in December isn’t exactly snowy and cold. But, I imagine delivering a baby in a smelly stable without a midwife seemed pretty bleak to Mary. And although she didn’t know exactly what was in store for her with this child, she knew that he was special. Conceived by the Holy Spirit. She had been chosen to bear and raise the son of God. She, a young virgin, had to be frightened and confused. And yet, here was this beautiful baby and like all mothers I’m sure she fell in love with him.

Also like all of us, she didn’t know what was to come. How she would in thirty-odd years see him beaten and crucified and killed. That day would be bleak, as well.

But she saw him again. Just as we believers will see our children again.

This season may feel bleak. This earthly life may feel cold and hard as iron. It will have to be enough for now. But, it won’t be bleak forever.

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Laura