“Mama. Oh Mom, oh Mom, oh Mom, oh Mom,” my 13-year-old moaned. “My stomach hurts so much. Mama, please come.”
I wished he’d called for Papa instead, because Mama was all snuggled in bed. The heat was turned low and she didn’t want to go. After a week of late nights, I’d set this Christmas night for my long winter’s sleep.
“Pleeeeease come.” It was 1:04 a.m. I’d rubbed his head at 10 and given meds at 11. But I couldn’t ignore his pitiful cry.
“Coming,” I called with a sigh.
So this is Christmas, I thought, forcing myself out of a snuggly, warm bed. Then—stumbling and shivering down the cold, dark hall toward my son’s groans—it hit me.
This is Christmas.
Leaving my cozy bed to help a sick child is much closer to the real meaning of Christmas than comfy-cozy and “Silent Night” by candlelight. Christmas is like leaving a warm bed to love in the cold.
“For us and for our salvation he came down,” the creed goes. The King of the Universe came down. God’s Son left the glories of Heaven and the warmth of His Father’s side to be born a man and care for God’s pitiful, sin-sick children.
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:5-7).
Jesus Christ came out of Heaven’s bright glory and was wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger, because there was no place in the inn. It all sounds uncomfortable and cold.
But that is how Love came down.
I crawled out of my warm bed to care for a pitiful, sick child. How can you display Christ’s servant’s heart this Christmas season?
8 comments
Convicted! How much we love our comfort! For me this week it was a sick dog….but I still wanted my husband to be the one who crawled from bed at 2:30 AM. I went…grumblingly. I must always remember “I am not my own.” Christmas is what Christ made of it, not the world, or even our own minds.
I know it! It is never easy crawling out of a cozy bed. But such an act of love. It maybe makes it a wee bit easier thinking of our Lord Jesus leaving the “comfort” of heaven. (I hope your dog heals.)
Thanks for the beautiful reminder of how love came down.
Thank you, Charissa. I think this incident stands out to me because I serve like this so seldom. You model this day in and day out.
So beautiful. Simply amazing His LOVE for us. Help us to demonstrate this kind of love everyday and whatever time the opportunity arises ❤️
Amen, my sister. We love because he first loved us.
Something about this season and the opportunity of loving sick kids. So glad for His love and example for us to cling to in those moments. Thanks so much for sharing your heart.
Yes! This time of year does bring extra opportunities to go low and love, it seems. I hope you all have healthy, happy days together!