A New Understanding of Christmas

This was written long before our boys were born.

As a woman, it is the most amazing thing to be pregnant at Christmas. We feel such a kindred spirit with Mary.

A New Understanding of Christmas

It's probably all been said before,
and I really don't want to be a bore,
But, Christmas to me
and what I feel,
is so very, oh, more real
than anything that could be said.

Being a woman, I think of Mary,
bearing the Babe
and having to carry
the responsibility and all the while,
she was little more
than a child herself.

Was she afraid, so far from home,
and knowing no more
than she must have known?
Was she afraid that silent night
bearing her child with only the light
from the star for assurance
that God was there
in person and prayer
Father and Son as one?

I guess I'm a dreamer, but I tend to see,
how things would be if it happened to me.
I wonder if
I could endure
the pain, and then still be as sure
that this was God's plan for my life
to be a mother before a wife,
I wonder if I could.

I try to grasp how it must have been
in the cold damp barn
when a bunch of men
shepherds they were
reverently knelt
and quietly behelt their Savior.

And later then the wise men three,
coming, oh, so far to see,
the Mother and the Child
The King
the Promised One
The Messiah.

I'm sure then Mary softly smiled
and looked down gently at her child
The Savior of the world to be
but right now so tenderly,
He was her baby.

Somehow, looking out through Mary's eyes
brings a new understanding of Christmas.

©Betty J. Newman Christmas 1980