DECEMBER 9, 2015
The Christmas Pageant
My husband and I had been happily married for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby. I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with His Word as my guide.
The next year God blessed us with another son.
The following year, He blessed us with yet another son.
The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.
My husband thought we'd been blessed quite enough. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old.
I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks.
I tried to be understanding...when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom. In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.
While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother - I didn't even come close...I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God.
Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."
My proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant.
My daughter was playing the Blessed Virgin, two of my sons were shepherds and my youngest son was a wise man.
My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes."
But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes."
A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.
I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama-mama."
Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived. My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, nelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur."
The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation. "I've never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," laughed the pastor, wiping tears from his eyes.
"For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur."
"My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.
