When the steel of the heavy staple wouldn’t give way from the grain of the wood, the blade of the prying scissors slipped. The scissors speared through the layers of the soft flesh.
Gushing red pulsed across the room, a fount.
I heaved and held the breath in the lungs, held the punctured hand with the good, held it and held on. A child ran, ran to the barn for him who has always come.
On the drive to the emergency room, Farmer Husband spoke the words I had been groping for, me lying down, nauseated by the sheet-whitening scarlet running down my arms.
He laid his hand on my leg, turned his eyes a moment from the road, spoke it softly, a gentle acceptance.
“Oh, we deck the halls… but yes. Advent is really all about blood.”
I smile weakly. He does too.
“A bit of an appalling visual….” I squeeze the clenched rag tighter.
“It’s like those words I just read that Jesus spoke before Pilate.” I murmur Jesus words....
“… ‘for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world…’ ”
I had had visions of swags of cranberry and popcorn, evergreen garlands draped from the mantle, a nativity scene swaddled in, yes, that stubborn, stapled-to-wood burlap bag.
A Better-Homes-and-Gardens Christmas with some Martha Stewart crafts and Focus on the Family Advent readings. A beautiful Christmas.
But is that true beauty?
True Beauty bears wounds. True Beauty is broken for its Beloved. True Beauty may have no beauty or majesty to attract us, nothing in its appearance that we should desire.
True Beauty may be despised and rejected by men.
What’s seeping out of the cloth, trickling down my arm, it looks ugly. It looks the antithesis of Christmas. But neither does this read like a Christmas text, words spoken before the shearers and the spikes:
‘for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world…’ ~Jn. 18:37
What if Christmas focused on Christ’s very own words regarding His birth?
That He was born for a reason, came into the world for a cause and it has to do with a tree, one decorated with Love, wrapped in Sacrifice, strung up with the Light of Word, nailed through with Grace.
That Advent is all about blood and the lamb in the manger bleating not a sound as He is sacrificed on the Tree.
In ER, I lie in a hospital bed and the nurse tenderly wipes away the blood, and I smile feebly knowing what I won't wipe from my Christmas. Scarlet stains these Advent days of waiting through with the True Beauty. And when the children light the first Advent candle, waiting for Him to come to the barn, Him who has come, always comes, and will come again, I sit with them.
I cradle my stitched and bruised hand like a babe, the hand that will scar.
The wound leaks a singular tear down my skin. I don't wipe it away.
My humblest gratitude for your kind prayers and thoughtful words for our family this week as I heal from my embarrassing, painful bungling. Attempts at creativity might best be left to wonders like Kimba and Melissa. ~weak smile, blush~ I think I'll stick to fumbling around with a keyboard and a shutter. (Yet so nice to have made gift giving easy for my sweet little sister this year. ~smile, wink~). I'm unspeakably thankful for the vivid ways God spoke to us this Advent.
To read the entire series of spiritual practices
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Photos:
~sock Advent calendar, all socks that (Mom)Grandma Voskamp knitted for us over the years,
~Oldest checking each bulb before stringing the tree,
~the lighting of the first Advent candle
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