*This is a re-post. Background notes: Bud- my stepfather who died in 2000.  Audrey-daughter and mother of twins. Celeste and Heston-friends of the family.

To sleep perchance to dream…- Shakespeare

Bud was dead: to begin with. This is how my own Christmas Carol began, just like Dickens’ Marley, Bud was here again, haunting me with his presence, his love, forgiveness, patience, with a warning of Christmas past.
Mom was here, too. Smiling. Loving. Encouraging.
What had they come to tell me in the middle of the night?

 

“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” -Marley, Charles Dickens

Was that the message I needed to hear?

Funerals….

Bud and Mom die again.
Grief.
Intensity real.

What? Why do you torture me so?

Driving down the road. Heston and Celeste in front of us, beside us, singing. Sam or Theo in a car seat beside Sophie. Where is Audrey?

Dead.

I awoke, my heart ripping,shredding with anguish, my body heavy with weariness, my mind racing, frantic, praying for Audrey, protection, health, long life to raise her boys, the words pour out of me in a torrent….

What is the message?

 

 

“You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,” Scrooge pursued. “Is that so, Spirit?” -Charles Dickens

Do not let that be the message of the dream!

Holy Spirit speaks, whispers quietly.

This is how adopted children when they lose their birth parents whether abused, abandoned, neglected, beaten, bruised…

Such anguish, fear, emptiness…

 

Is that how you felt, Jesus, when the Father turned His face from you?

…Eli, Eli, lama sbachthani?- that is My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?..-Matthew 27:46

Is that how you felt when your Father sent you to earth an an infant to feel what I feel: cold, injustice, rejection, abandonment, poverty?

Good news! You came to heal the broken hearted, to bind up their wounds, to set the captives free, for all of those rejected and abandoned by someone, YOU came to receive us as YOUR OWN.

The true Christmas Carol.

Thank you for the hope of healing for all those who are broken-hearted who abide in my home and in my heart. May I never forget the anguish I felt on that night.