CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
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Christmas Eve is a time of miracles. Many miles away and many years ago was no exception.
Donna
I was a teen-aged Sunday School teacher and Donna was a severely mentally challenged eight-year-old in my third-grade class. In the four months I had known her, she had never spoken a word. Her speech was animal-like grunting to my ears.
I had no experience or background to handle her needs. She had been put with the twenty-five other children of her age in my class and I tried to share Jesus.
How do you break through her darkness, I wondered over and over.
The Christmas Pageant
Finally, Christmas approached. The teachers of grades one through four were planning the yearly, combined grades, Christmas pageant. Our only problem, it seemed, was what to do about Donna. How could we include her and still minimize the upsets, noises, and interruptions that seemed to surround her? We debated, finally deciding to make Donna one of the angels in the “multitude” and hope for the best.
At long last, after much practice, the moment arrived.
The children were all in costume. The children’s mothers had made the angel’s costumes especially beautiful that year.
Most glowing of all, it seemed, was Donna. I had never seen her look so happy. She was radiant. In the line of angels, she was just another beautiful little girl. She was quiet, her eyes taking it all in…
“How much does she understand of it all, Lord?” I wondered as I had all year.
Walking in Darkness
The opening scene showed the prophet, Isaiah. A scroll-bearing, robed little boy read solemnly, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light…” (Isaiah 9:2a) KJV
The program progressed. Mary. Joseph. Shepherds.
Then, finally, the moment of the angels arrived. A dark curtain was pulled back and the large brilliant beam of light from the spotlight hit them.
Donna had not been prepared for this. Her face looked startled.
Then a joy, unimagined, spread across it..
……and she spoke the first word I had ever heard her utter.
Loudly, clearly, so we all could hear: Donna smiled, pointed, and joyfully shouted:
“LIGHT !!!!!!!”
Christmas Eve is a time of miracles.
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light,” the Bible tells us.
His light of love pierces our darkness still.
Though quite different from Donna’s, we each have our own individual darkness that can be touched only by the Light of God’s Love.
Don’t just open gifts this year.
Open Your Heart
Open Your Heart…to God’s Love.
Receive the Gift…of His Son.
for us.
Let the Light in.
You too will be amazed…
Christmas Eve is a time of miracles…
…….Still.