I won first place in the local Newspaper's yearly Christmas Story Contest. The story will follow and I'd like to take the opportunity to wish all my faithful readers a blessed Christmas season and a happy new year.
The story has bits and peaces of me all over it and some of it is very true too, but not all of it.
Sorry that I haven't been keeping up this blog to those who have been faithfully checking it out. Let me hear from you if you're enjoying it. I'll tell you, it is very encouraging. I 've had to go to the school to blog at all, and to check my mail and that is not too frequent. So thanks all, love you.
I'd also like to decorate this page with some art I did in my window this season. It's meant to look like stained glass but it's actually water color. The black part of it is tempera and didn't hold very well as you can see the one is slightly loved already by my two wonderful boys. They did light up though, like the real thing, when the sun shines through.
Being Mary
Becky had grown up in a Hutterite colony and had gone to a one room school all of her 16 years.
Becky had grown up in a Hutterite colony and had gone to a one room school all of her 16 years.
She was a cheerful and outgoing girl with a ready smile. She was a good actor, and one could always count on her to participate in the school’s yearly Christmas pageant.
Becky never had the chance to play the part of Mary though she had secretly longed to for many years.
It seemed that part was always reserved for someone with a button cute nose and delicate features, plus a dainty figure and Becky had neither. She had fairly large bones and her face was oval shaped.
She loved playing dress up though and would play the part to her heart’s content in front of her mirror at home in her room.
By the time she finished her grade nine education and left school to join the work force of the adults, she knew every word of We Three Kings and the narration of Luke 2 verse 1 to 20 completely by heart. She had played shepherd and angle to the best of her ability, but never Mary.
She had a strong clear voice that could carry whatever was to be said or sung all the way to the back of the room without a microphone. It was her voice that made her a welcome addition to the young people’s choir who met for practice once a week.
Each year at Christmas time the young people would make an appointment to sing carols at a nearby old folks home.
This was Becky’s first year, and having the freedom and imagination to contribute whatever she wished, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
She was going as Mary!
She had no problem recruiting a Joseph from among her young and handsome companions so off they went in royal blue and purple.
She stood proudly with Joseph holding her doll in swaddling cloths and reading the words to Oh Beautiful Star of Bethlehem off of her neighbor’s book.
The doll had been a Christmas gift from her mom a few years before as one last doll gift before she would be too old to play with them.
She loved it, for it had dark skin, black hair and a bright yellow dress, unlike any other doll she had ever owned.
Becky sang happily when she caught a movement from the corner of her eye. A few glances in that direction produced the knowledge that one of the elderly ladies was beckoning for baby Jesus.
Without hesitation Becky weaved through the wheelchairs of the audience and laid her doll into the worn eager arms. The old lady’s smile was brilliant as she cradled the baby doll to her heart, and Becky was sure that she heard the angels sing along when she rejoined the choir.
After sharing songs, cards, cookies and friendship, Becky just didn’t have the heart to ask for her doll back. She said goodnight to the old lady and left for the van with that warm feeling tugging at her heart.
It was mixed with the sadness of having lost something dear. Becky could still see those wrinkled old eyes behind the glasses lighting up the room, and knew that she must have done the same.
That night, as she lay in bed, Becky thought of the real Mary of long ago, how she had had to give up her own precious baby Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of the world. How her heart must have been braking to see Him suffer.
Becky wiped a tear from her eye as she thought that maybe the old lady in the home had never had the chance to play the part of Mary either.
