It was the very best Christmas ever.
It was late afternoon, the snow was still falling gently—it looked
like a picture of a scene in an old-fashioned sentimental Christmas movie—and Laurie
DeJager lay on her bed with a brand new cell phone in her hand.
Best. Christmas. Ever.
Oh, before we go further, I must tell you, I first heard this story
from Laurie—about 13 years ago, and retold it for the first time the very next year
around Christmastime. So this was back when most girls her age didn’t have a
cell phone. And the one she had just received for Christmas looked just like
this one— [show phone]
And as she admired it and entered the names of her friends and their
phone numbers… An even bigger surprise than the phone itself… It RANG! It RANG!
Excitedly Laurie pressed the green key and said softly, “Hello?” And then a bit
louder, “Hello?”
“Hello, Laurie--”
“Hello, who IS this?”
“Hello, Laurie, this is Jesus.”
“Hello, Laurie, this is Jesus.”
“What??!!”
Laurie looked at the phone. Speechless.
“Laurie, are you still there? This is Jesus—“
Laurie giggled, and said, “Yes, Jesus?” and she KNEW it must be her
dad playing a trick on her. She dashed down the stairs to catch him in the act.
But—what?!—there he was, in his easy chair, sound asleep, the only sound in the
room his snoring and the movie on the TV where Ralphie was hinting about a Red
Ryder BB gun.
Back in her room, trying to figure it all out, the phone rang again.
Taking a deep breath, Laurie answered again.
“Laurie, this is Jesus, now don’t you hang up on me.”
“Jesus? Really? What would you be calling ME about?”
“Just one simple thing. I’d like to meet you for hot chocolate and
Christmas cookies.”
“How do YOU know about hot choc—oh, yeah, right, I guess you know everything—“
Hot chocolate and Christmas cookies:
Laurie was more than a little bit sentimental about hot chocolate and Christmas
cookies. Every year for as long as she could remember her grandmother would
invite her over for hot chocolate and Christmas cookies—just the two of them—her
grandmother made batches and batches of cookies—mostly stars and trees—usually the
week after Thanksgiving.
Laurie was sentimental about a lot of things—her annual date with
Grandma, to be sure, but even now that she’d turned 13—and, you need to know, Laurie
really felt like this meant she was now a “grown up”—yet even now she was still
pretty attached to her four special friends that sat around a small table in
her bedroom—now that I think about it, it almost looked like the table in Bonnie’s
room in Toy Story 3 (that’s the one where they escape from Sunnyside Day Care)—a
table with four chairs, one for each of her most special friends: two American Girl dolls, a Raggedy Ann, and a
big brown teddy bear. But no, no porcupine name Mr. Pricklepants in this story.
Anyway, I tell you all this because
Laurie was now 13 and sometimes torn between being all grown up and loving her
dolls—she had this feeling like maybe “IMAGINATION” and being grown up were
incompatible. She felt this way even though she didn’t really know the word “incompatible”
but she just felt like maybe some things didn’t go together. Like having a cell phone and playing with
dolls.
And some of these thoughts were running through her head when she fell
asleep that night, thinking of the next day, the day AFTER Christmas, a Sunday,
the day she would meet Jesus for hot chocolate and Christmas cookies at three o’clock…. Which took some sneakiness on her part
because her family ALWAYS ate Sunday dinner at Grandma’s after church, and
there were extra desserts and expectations of maybe helping with the 1000-piece
annual Christmas puzzle. But Grandma’s house was only 9 or 10 blocks from home
and she’d walked it a million times. And as 2:30 approached and she walked,
bundled up, she congratulated herself on her creativity. She had escaped the
puzzle and her crazy little brother and her great aunt who smelled like lavender
soap and green tea. And now she was
nearly home when she bumped—she LITERALLY bumped—into Mrs. Jones, their almost-next
door neighbor two houses down.
“Are you alright?” Laurie was worried and apologized and helped Mrs.
Jones up… they had BOTH landed in the snow… and all the while Mrs. Jones just
laughed and laughed at the sight and Laurie thought this might have been the
first time she saw her laugh for a long time. Mr. Jones had died in May. And as
they brushed each other off, without a thought, Laurie asked, “Would you like
some hot chocolate and Christmas cookies? My treat?”
And so they sat around the kitchen table in Laurie’s otherwise empty
house. And when Mrs. Jones finally went home it was past 3:30.
Ding-dong.
Laurie jumped to attention and cleared the last crumb off the table
and dashed to the door. “Jesus rings the doorbell?” she wondered—
And opening the door it wasn’t Jesus at all but her old friend. OLD
friend. Emphasis on OLD. Becky Johnson. Who had turned 13 six months earlier
than Laurie—over a year ago—and who immediately, upon turning 13, turned into a—a—well,
Laurie couldn’t even THINK that word on a Sunday.
It would take too long to tell you all the details. But something
amazing happened. Becky apologized to Laurie and Laurie said, “I forgive you.”
And Laurie said, “I’m sorry for calling you a nasty word,” and Becky said, I
forgive you.” And they hugged and shared
yellow stars—biting off the points in little bites—and green Christmas trees—biting
off the frosting star off each other’s—and sipped hot chocolate. And cried a
little. And laughed again.
And by now would you be surprised if I told you the next visitor wasn’t
Jesus either, but Laurie’s goofy little brother? And that they shared hot
chocolate and Christmas cookies together?
And it was the best Sunday after Christmas ever except when Laurie
remembered, as she lay in bed nearly two hours past her bedtime, and half-awake
she began to cry.
The phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Jesus?” Laurie tried to hold back her tears. “Jesus, I thought we
were going to have—But, but you never showed up. You never came.”
“Oh, Laurie. I did come. I came
three times.”
“What??! I don’t understand,” Laurie said.
“Do you remember the Christmas story? Not the one with Ralphie, but
the one with shepherds and a baby born to Mary and Joseph, in a dark, smelly
stable with animals all around?”
Laurie nodded.
“Laurie, not many people—no one, in fact—expected to find me lying in
a manger. The shepherds didn’t expect it—the angels had to tell them. The magi
didn’t expect a baby in a manger—they were following a bright star looking for
a king—in a palace or mansion. No one expected to find me there. And today, you
didn’t expect to find me in your brother, or in Becky, or in Mrs. Jones. But
after you think about it—maybe tomorrow, maybe next year—you’ll realize you
really did. And you know what else, Laurie?...
Your brother, and Mrs. Jones, and Becky… they each experienced God’s
Love in you, Laurie. They all had hot chocolate and Christmas cookies with me…
through you…
So don’t be sad, Laurie. There’s too much sadness in the world. There’s
too much anger and hatred and holding grudges and hunger in the world too.
Things aren’t all perfect yet, but someday they will be. Until then, Laurie,
you and others who love me are called to be Living Signs of my Love. Today,
Laurie, you brought gladness and healing to Mrs. Jones, who’s been grieving;
you and Becky brought reconciliation into the world by forgiving each other;
and you brought grace and joy into the world in the small act of spending an
hour with your brother. So keep looking for me, OK? In the most unlikely places…
OK?”
Laurie said “yes” softly as she fell asleep, cell phone in hand.
Best. Christmas. Ever.
