You Shall Find a Babe | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: You Shall Find a Babe | Previous Challenge Entry
By Cherie Millsap
12/08/08
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She reluctantly rolled out of bed and quietly made her descent down the familiar stairs. Her path was visible only by the light of the moon streaming through the windows. She found her way to the living room easily, with its beautifully lit Christmas tree all aglow. She sat down on the floor next to the tree pausing a moment to breathe in the beauty. She imagined how different this room would be in just a few hours from now, as her precious family would virtually explode from their beds with uncontained excitement.

Her thoughts lingered on imagined beaming faces as they opened their gifts. Then her thoughts drifted to her son and his family who would not be there, and the familiar burdened pain clutched within her heart. Aching tears followed as she pulled out the bag of toys that still needed to be prepared for little ones to play their Christmas day away…

She froze in place as her movements jarred the tree, and knocked off a few of its ornaments. She stopped and listened to see if the house would react to the sound, but there was only silence… She bent to replace the ornaments again on the tree, when she recognized one as the one her son had given her, when he was just a small boy... It was a small paper Mache lamb that he had made in the fourth grade.

She could not help the agony that gripped her heart as she thought about her son, who was truly a lost lamb. She prayed, “Lord, please find Him! Please, save him!” This prayer was not unfamiliar to her as it was easily her daily heart’s cry. She had virtually knocked relentlessly on the door of God’s heart for years with her petition, starting from the time her son had turned his back on God.

She thought of God’s son, far from home lying in a manger. How hard that must have been for God. She knew because of the father’s love, she could trust Him, so again she placed her son into the Father’s hands. She knew as much as she loved her son, He loved him more.

As she looked at the small lamb ornament lying in her hand, she began to think of those shepherds tending their sheep out in the fields. She imagined the heavenly hosts appearing to them, most likely scaring them half out of their minds… The message had come, “You shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

How amazing that God had a message for these shepherds out in the wilderness… Then it happened… In the silence of this Christmas morning, a still small voice that is unmistakably God, spoke peace to her emotional storm in one thought, “That message was not just for the shepherds… but it was also for the sheep, all the sheep, especially the lost ones!”

She knew then and there, that her own lost lamb, somehow, somewhere too, would find the babe lying in a manger. She tucked the ornament back onto the tree, and at the same time, she tucked the gift of hope down deep into her heart. She knew that these two sons were destined to meet, and that that revelation, was the best gift she could have ever received this Christmas!

“Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth, goodwill toward men!”

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