How I've spent Christmas Eve for the past five years.
Now that the "holiday season" is heavy on us all, and more so on those pieces of plastic that we carry around in our pockets and hope others don't gain access to, and all the plastic Santas are carefully placed on rooftops with the blinking icicle lights underneath, I just thought I'd share a special place that I've been going to for the past five Chrismas Eves.
It's quiet there, and it smells bad to those that aren't used to it. There's hay all around and the smell of manure, as always.
I usually just walk up and go in through a side door, so that the wind doesn't blow snow inside as it would if I opened the big doors.
Somehow, this place connects something special to me that I wish I could share with others. Too many people would disturb the serenity of it, but if you're ever out my way on Christmas Eve, I certainly be pleased to take you.
Anyway, after I enter through the side door and stamp the snow off my boots. The sun is showing orange as it sets outside and it makes beautiful purple shadows on the snow as it fades. It takes a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the dimness inside.
The horses all poke their heads from their stalls to see who's coming. They must think I'm going to toss them a flake of hay or a scoop of grain, but that's not why I'm there. I'm there for me this time...so I can connect with something that helps me connect with two people that might have found a similar place so long ago. One was very pregnant, young, scared, rejected.
The other was older, shamed by not being the father of the one she carried, but loving her deeply, so much so, that he wanted to find her a place to deliver her baby, yet was turned away many times in his quest.
I'm guessing that all he wanted to do was pay his taxes, just like the rest of us, play by the rules.
As I walk down the shedrow each Christmas Eve, just the horses nickering, the chickens roosted, I can only imagine what it must have been like so long ago. The cold, the smells, the quiet, and the hope.
Sometimes I spend hours just sitting on a bale of hay thinking about it.
Then, after my silent prayer in the darkness of the barn, I realize that it's time to leave and let the horses have their home again.
So I open the side door and walk out into the snowy cold.
Is that a bright star that I see in the western sky?
Can it show the way again?
I sure hope so.
And to all that have taken the time to read this, I wish you PEACE! JOY! and the HOPE! of the promise of that in which you believe.
I'd love to share a Christmas Eve with just you, the horses, and me someday...but I trust this will suffice.
Merry Christmas!
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