A Treasury of Christmas Miracles Page 4

  When Sunday came they dressed Jessica in a white satin dress and sat beside her for the first time in years. The service was put on by all the Christian churches in town and held at the high school auditorium as it was each year at that time. The message was of hope and joy, the story of the Christ child born to a weary world so that men might live forevermore. It was a message that was tried and true and in their private prisons of pain Steve and Cindy quietly realized the mistake they’d made by walking away from their faith.

  “God gave the greatest gift of all, the gift of pure love wrapped in flesh and bones, the gift of his son,” the minister’s voice rang clear. “But what of you? What will you give to the Savior this year.”

  There was silence in the auditorium.

  Tentatively, Steve ran a single finger along Jessica’s stiff legs.

  “I urge you,” the pastor added quietly, “to take time these next few days and lay something at the Savior’s feet. Something you love ... or something you need to leave behind. Perhaps something that should have been laid there a long time ago.”

  On the way home that morning Jessica turned to her father. “Did you hear him, Daddy?” she asked. “He said love is the greatest gift of all.”

  “Sure, honey,” Steve said, staring straight ahead at the road in front of him.

  “That’s what I’m getting for you and Mommy this year,” she announced merrily. “A whole lot of love.”

  Jessica thought a moment and then continued. “Preacher also said to give something to Jesus, something you love very much. Isn’t that right, Mommy?”

  “That’s right, honey.”

  Steve and Cindy forgot about Jessica’s conversation until the next morning as they were getting ready for the day. First Steve, then Cindy spotted something near the nativity scene set up on the living room floor. It was Molly, Jessica’s precious baby doll. She had laid it tenderly at the feet of the baby Jesus.

  That afternoon while Steve was at the office Cindy studied Jessica as she napped. What was the point of the pastor’s message? she wondered. If love was such a great gift how come her marriage was dissolving? How come Jessica had cerebral palsy? The child loved God enough to give him her Molly doll. But what had God ever done for her, for any of them?

  Cindy returned to the main room and sat alone listening to the haunting sounds of Christmas carols on the radio. She wanted to believe, but still the thought remained. What had the Christ child ever done for them?

  When Steve returned late that night Cindy was already in bed. But before he slipped under the sheets next to her she felt him do something he hadn’t done in months. He leaned over and gently kissed her good night.

  The next day was Christmas Eve and Steve was gone to work when Cindy woke up. She climbed out of bed, fixed breakfast for Jessica, and led her through two hours of stretches and exercises. Only then, just before lunchtime, did she again notice something unusual about the nativity scene. Molly’s doll was gone and now a manila envelope lay at the foot of the manger.

  Curiously Cindy approached it and took the envelope in her hands. There on the outside were these words scribbled in Steve’s handwriting.

  “Lord, I have something to lay at your feet. Something I love very much. I give you my word: from now on I will accept Jessica as she is. I have been horribly unfair to my family by pretending she will one day be different than who you made her to be. I understand now. Jessica can only learn to live with her cerebral palsy if I learn to live with it first.” Cindy opened the package and there, inside, were the unused pink ballet slippers that had hung on Jessica’s wall for four years.

  Cindy curved her fingers around the slippers and allowed the tears to come. She cried because her little girl would never wear them, never dance as her father had once dreamed. But she also cried because if Steve was finally ready to accept the truth, then maybe he was ready to work with her and not against her. Maybe there was hope after all.

  She wiped her eyes and looked at the carved figurine of the Christ child and suddenly the answer to her question became clear. Jesus had given them himself. Because of him they could learn to love again. With him they could survive as a family. And through him they could live eternally in a place where Jessica could run and play and jump with the other children.

  Cindy fell to her knees and hung her head. “Forgive me, Lord.” And as she stayed there she began to wonder what a flawed woman like herself could give to one so holy.

  Her tears slowed and quietly she tiptoed into Jessica’s room and watched her napping. This time she felt no bitterness toward God as she studied the small girl. Golden ringlets softly framed her pretty face and Cindy saw only peace and contentment there as deep in her heart a light dawned. In that moment, with all her being, she was absolutely certain about what she would give to Jesus.

  That night when Steve came home the house was dark but for the lights around the nativity scene. He studied the figurines standing around the Christ child and saw that his envelope was gone. In its place was a smaller white one. Steve crossed the room, set down his overcoat and briefcase, and slid a finger under the flap. Inside was a single sheet of paper and something small wrapped in tissue paper. Steve read the handwritten note with tears in his eyes.

  “Dear Lord, I give back to you what you—five years ago—gave to me. I have held on too tightly, Lord, forgotten that this precious gift was never really mine. I let another child take the place of the one that lay in a hay-filled manger that cold night in Bethlehem. And now love has all but died in our home. I’m sorry, Lord. I’ve tried to make her something other than what you made her, but no more. I’ll love her always, but I understand now that she doesn’t belong to me. She belongs to you. Now and forevermore.”

  Steve unwrapped the tissue paper and there inside lay a single small picture of Jessica.

  Steve heard something and turned. With Jessica perched on her hip, Cindy was watching him from the doorway. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears and Steve went to her, hugging her tightly as Jessica wrapped her arms around them both.

  “We can’t throw it all away. Not when we haven’t even tried,” he whispered. “I’m ready to work with you, Cindy.”

  She nodded, choking back a sob. “All my efforts and all your denial and we almost missed the truth,” she said. “When she put Molly at Jesus’ feet ...Steve, she’s perfect just the way she is. She loves more perfectly than either of us ever have. She reminded me of all God has done for me, for all of us.”

  “That’s her Christmas gift to us, right, sweetheart?” Steve lifted Jessica’s chin and kissed her forehead.

  Jessica nodded and grinned, first at her daddy and then at the tiny statue of baby Jesus in the nativity scene. She did not understand everything that had happened between her parents and the Lord that Christmas. Only that the town of Cottonwood felt a little like heaven that week because her prayers had been answered. The preacher had been right.

  Love really was the best Christmas miracle of all.

  A Touch of

  Heaven

  Newly married and fresh out of Bible college, Ashley and Bill Larson began making plans to be missionaries in Africa. They spent that next year taking training courses on the African diet, socialization process, and other important details that would aid them in their four-year stint on another continent.

  When they had nearly completed their education and had already been assigned to a village in a remote tribal area, Bill had an idea. He had been trained in Bible education and knew well the message he and Ashley would present to the tribal people. But he had never studied the power of healing through prayer.

  “I think I’m going to take that course,” Bill told his wife one afternoon.

  Ashley nodded and shrugged her shoulders. “Why not?”

  The two discussed the course, and Ashley, pregnant with their first child, decided she would not have time for the additional work. But Bill was intrigued. If he was going to tell the people about God’s love, then he’d bet
ter be prepared to tell them about his healing power as well.

  Although raised in the Christian church and well versed in scripture, Bill had never thought much of the preachers who did healing demonstrations. Many of them had proved to be frauds over the years. Even worse, a number had been swindlers who only performed trickery in exchange for donations. And so to consider the true healing nature of God was a new idea for Bill.

  He began the class at about the same time that Ashley visited a doctor for what had become a persistent lower and middle back pain.

  “I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Mrs. Larson,” the doctor told her as the two sat in his office after her examination. “The X rays show that you’re suffering from the early stages of scoliosis.”

  The doctor went on to explain that scoliosis was a disease that caused the spine to begin to curve unnaturally, forcing the body to become severely hunched and causing excruciating pain in its victims. When the disease occurs in children, it can be managed with a series of braces since the child’s skeletal frame is still growing. However, when it strikes an adult, there is nothing that can be done.

  “What can I expect?” Ashley asked, fighting tears. The news was devastating. She and Bill had so many plans for the future. If she were going to be strong enough to bear children and live the rugged life of a missionary in Africa, she would need a healthy back.

  “The pain you’re experiencing will get worse. Within the next two years you will be able to notice the curving in your spine. I’m sorry.”

  Ashley nodded in resignation and returned home to share the news with Bill. He sympathized with her and then told her his own news. He had met twice already with the class on healing through prayer. He told her he was impressed with the stories he was hearing. Not stories of tent revival healings or televised miracles, but quiet stories of health changes that in his opinion could be nothing less than modern-day miracles. Christmas was two days away and suddenly Bill was overwhelmed by the presence of God in their lives. How could they doubt for a minute that the Lord could heal, could work a miracle? And what better time to ask for a miracle than Christmas week? When the greatest miracle of all had happened two thousand years ago.

  That night as they were falling asleep, Bill sat up in bed and spoke to Ashley in the dark of their room.

  “Would you mind if I pray for your back, Ashley?”

  Ashley shrugged, already partially asleep. “Sure. Do I have to move?”

  “No. You’re fine.”

  Ashley was lying on her side, a position that favored her painful back. As she lay, falling asleep, Bill spent thirty minutes holding his hands above her back and praying silently that God would heal her condition.

  Each night during that Christmas week he continued this routine. Just as they were about to go to sleep, he would sit up, place his hands over Ashley’s back, and pray specifically for God to heal her scoliosis. On the seventh night something strange happened.

  Bill had been praying for his wife for ten minutes when suddenly he spoke.

  “Ashley?”

  “Yes?” She was still awake.

  “Do you feel anything?”

  “Just your hand moving up and down along my spine.”

  Bill’s eyes widened in surprise. “Ashley, I haven’t touched your back.”

  Ashley sat up quickly and turned to look at Bill. “That’s not funny!”

  Bill shook his head. “I’m serious, Ashley. I haven’t touched you. The only reason I asked if you felt something was because I had my hand over your back and at that moment I was feeling something warm beneath my hand.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to keep praying.”

  Ashley yawned and lay back down on their bed. “It can’t hurt. Besides, I know God could heal me if he wanted to. I just don’t know if that’s part of his plan for us. Modern miracles and all.”

  “By the way, how’s your pain?” Bill asked.

  Ashley paused a moment and then sat upright once more. “You know, actually I can’t feel it.”

  There was silence between them for a moment as they considered the warmth that had passed along Ashley’s back and the feeling of a human hand moving up and down her spine.

  “Do you think,” Ashley asked quietly, “I might be healed?”

  “I think we need to see how you feel tomorrow and in the meantime keep praying.”

  Two weeks later, after Ashley and Bill had flown to Pennsylvania to visit her parents, she saw a doctor who had known her as a child. She brought with her the X rays and diagnosis from the previous doctor. Upon initial examination of the records the doctor agreed with the diagnosis: severe scoliosis, which appeared to be progressing rapidly.

  Then, upon Ashley’s request, the doctor took another set of X rays and performed an additional examination of her spine.

  “I don’t know how to explain this,” the doctor said as he reentered the examination room. “Ashley, there’s no sign of scoliosis at all. Your back is perfectly normal.”

  Ashley was stunned. She remembered the night when she had felt a hand moving gently along her back. “Could it somehow have reversed itself?” she asked the doctor, wanting to be absolutely sure about what had happened.

  “No. For a person to have scoliosis as severely as you did in these last X rays”—the doctor held the photographs up to the light and shook his head—“you would definitely have had scar tissue, even if it had somehow reversed itself.”

  “Then how do you explain it?”

  The doctor put the films gently on a nearby table and smiled at Ashley. “I’ve learned over the years that there are some things we on Earth cannot explain when it comes to medical healings. I like to call them miracles.”

  Ashley shared with the doctor the incident weeks earlier when at Christmastime Bill had been praying and she had felt a hand on her spine at the same time that he felt a warmth passing beneath his hand. To Ashley’s surprise, the doctor nodded.

  “Yes, when we hear of this type of thing—and we don’t hear about it very often—there is often a warmth associated with it. It doesn’t take a lot of believing on my part. After all, the human body itself is a working miracle. That our Creator would continue to work miracles within us is in my opinion quite possible.”

  Months later when Ashley and Bill left for Africa, it was in good health and with a deep respect for the kind of prayer that God answers in the form of miraculous healing. And a feeling of intense gratitude for the Lord’s two special Christmas gifts: Ashley’s healthy spine, and the ability to go into the mission believing that what the Bible says is true: Nothing is impossible with God.

  Home for

  Christmas

  Barbara Oliver was the only one of her five siblings who never quite fit in. When her four sisters played sports with their only brother, she watched on the sidelines. When the girls grew older and began dating, Barbara stayed at home and watched television; she felt too shy and unlovely to mix with the boys her age.

  She struggled with her weight and often sat alone at family get-togethers, feeling too self-conscious to participate. And so her peers and even her immediate family often forgot about her, finding it easier to involve themselves in their own lives than to take time to figure out why Barbara was so quiet.

  During those crucial formative years, Barbara appeared to have few opinions and even fewer social graces, but inside her lived a young woman nearly bursting with the desire to be loved and cared for. For that reason, from the time she was old enough to walk, she idolized the two men in her life: her brother, Lou, and her father, Hank.

  Hank Oliver was a small-town doctor during the years when his family was growing up in Glenview, Illinois. He was the type of practitioner who still made house calls and who allowed his patients to pay him by whatever means they could—even if that meant trading a handpicked bag of produce for one of his visits. He had the lowest charges in town, and while most doctors would only prescribe medica
tions, he was willing to teach people nutrition and preventative measures for improving their health.

  Everyone in town loved Doctor Hank, as they called him. The feeling was mutual, and he often spent seven days a week engulfed in his practice. Just a handful of people in Glenview ever wondered if Doctor Hank loved them in return and they lived under his roof.

  “Don’t you ever wonder, Lou?” Barbara asked her brother one day when they were in their early teens. “He’s gone so much of the time that I’m not sure whether he really loves us or not.”

  Lou’s eyes fell, and he stared at the baseball and glove in his hands. His father had promised to play ball with him that day, but once again he’d been called away for a medical emergency.

  “Yeah,” he said after a while. “I know what you mean. If he loves us, then why can’t he spend more time with us? It seems like he should want to be with us more than with his patients.”

  Hank was such a happy, good-natured man that the children felt foolish voicing any complaints at all except to each other. But still they missed their father and once in a while continued to wonder about how much he loved them.

  Time passed, and Hank’s health declined rapidly. He had been diagnosed years before with a disease that made him prone to seizures. But it wasn’t until ten years later that he began degenerating and finally had to give up his practice.

  He finally succumbed to his illness after making peace with each of his children. Throughout the final days of his life it was often Barbara and Lou who took turns waiting on him and comforting him.

  “What are we going to do without him?” Barbara asked her brother not long after the funeral. “I can’t imagine living in a world where he’s not around.”

  Lou nodded. Their family had been raised to love God and obey the Bible. He knew that his father was in heaven. But still, the pain of losing him was almost too much to bear. Especially after coming to understand in his father’s final years just how much the man loved him.