Mamas Bärli,
Tonight, I started to explain the concept of Advent to you. Lately, amongst other memories, I have been reminiscing about one from the visit with GM & GP last year. One conversation we had in the car, with GP (GM and Lindy were in Lindy’s car), went like this:
Me: Who was Jesus’ mother?
You: Mary.
Me: And his father?
You: Joseph.
Me: (pause) Well, yes. He had another father, too.
You: Huh?
Me: God is Jesus’ father. Joseph is his earthly father and God is his eternal father.
You: Huh?
GP laughed.
GP: It is a bit difficult to understand, even for us, right?
When we had this talk, he just sat and smiled. Perhaps he was happy we were talking about faith. Perhaps he was happy your brain was trying to understand that we can’t really mentally understand faith. I just know he was happy.
That smile. Oh, that smile he had.
Getting back to tonight, it’s the first week of Advent. So, we talked a bit about Mary because Mommy talks to to Mary quite a bit about you (“PLEASE, give me strength because I know you had a child that had some serious ideas about how to do things the ‘right’ way.”). I told you that when she needed to have her baby, no one would let her inside their inns (hotels); so, she had to give birth to Jesus in a very dirty, cold, probably wet barn with animals around her. It wasn’t anything nice like the hospital where I had you. A few seconds later, this was your response:
“Momma, if Mary needed to have my room for the baby, me and Veronica (stuffed animal) would share.”
It told me a lot about you, Bärli.
On a day which saw you having temper tantrums (about things like not having an extra 2 minutes to play basketball, being unable to play with Daniel, not being able to put the crayons in the little boxes easily, and wanting bananas instead of oranges), your real heart shone through all that nonsense.
At age 4, you “get” it.
It isn’t about keeping everything safe, wonderful, shiny, new, beautiful, comfortable, etc. for yourself.
It is all about making sure that people that have less than you, people in desperate need of the help that you can give, are given the beauty, kindness, and best that you can give – based solely on that fact that they are human beings worthy of your best. Momma is trying so hard to teach you: you have two hands – one for taking care of yourself and the other for helping others. You cannot help others if you are not strong and tonight you said it so clearly – you are strong. Your head and your heart are working in tandem, my darling boy. You “get” it. You have so much and you are able to give so much. Of course, you thought you should probably stay in Godmum’s room because the baby would be loud and would have to have diapers, but that’s beside the beautiful point.
I could imagine your GP tonight, just like he did that day in the car. Smiling. Proud you are his and loving your heart.
The darling of the world is come, and fit is is we find a room to welcome him. The nobler part of all the house here is the heart. – Robert Herrick
The World of Before You 