“Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.”
Such a beautiful song. When I started singing this earlier today it wasn’t because of Christmas, although this is a time of Christmas carols and hymns. I was singing it in response to the death of a member of our community.
I didn’t know this man. I’d seen him and his family in church for years. But when I heard the news I couldn’t place him. I knew members of his family though. I knew their joy, their love, their faith. I knew some of the hardships they had struggled with, through the years. And when I started singing I was singing for them.
Birthing a baby is not easy. It is not a fast process, although I have always believed that Mary did not have to wait long for the birth of our Savior. For the average mother the birth seems to take forever. For the average mother there is so much pain and even frustration. You always think that the next pain will be the last one only to find out there are so many more labor pains to come.
Raising a baby also is not easy. It takes so much to bring up a child. A parent gives up so much in raising their children. Gone are the days of selfishness: a 10 minute nap; the last bowl of ice cream; going to a little league baseball game rather than lunch with a friend. The older the children get the more the parent thinks it’s going to get easier. It does in some ways. You don’t have to buy formula and diapers but you have to spend that money on school clothes and sports uniforms. Even when you’re sure they are self-sufficient you find that they need help paying a bill or need you to run a couple of errands for them.
Being the parent of an adult is not at all what you expected. Sure, they don’t need you, until they do. They rely on themselves until adulting gets too hard and then they turn back to the security of home. I always marvel at the fact that my children touch base frequently and always feel so very comfortable in our home. They turn right back into the children they have always been.
You never give up the role as a parent. Mary didn’t. She mothered Jesus from the manger to the tomb. Too many mothers have had to do that.
Tonight I pray for those mothers. Tonight I pray for those who have had to fall on their knees as they hear the voices tell them their child is no more. As they have to experience their child leaving this world way too soon.
But as believers we have to know that the angels pulled those children into the light of Christ and their soul felt its worth. I pray those that are left behind feel the thrill of hope from the weary world and rejoice. We all know that “yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”
Hold those babies tight Mamas.
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,’Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born.
O night, O holy night, O night divine.