Every Christmas Eve I think of Mary Margaret.
She was 92 when I met her. Seated next to her at a church picnic, we instantly fell into easy conversation about life. Despite my put-together appearance on the outside, inside I was anxiously searching for solid footing. Young in my faith and marriage, I desperately wanted to do it all so perfectly. I'm sure Mary Margaret could see my anxious striving. Her authentic reassurance and steadfast faith drew me in like a warm hug.
What stays with me still is the story of her wedding night so many Christmas Eves ago. As a soul-filling storyteller, I hung on Mary Margaret's words like honey. With vivid detail, she described her tiny hometown church in South Carolina sweetly decorated with beautiful fresh evergreens and candlelight. Nervously she waited until midnight for the ceremony, all so that she could say she was married on Christmas. Somehow it had managed to snow that night, casting a white blanket of peace over the country church. She glowed as she remembered the wonder of it all, stepping out into the fresh fallen snow as a new bride and the promise of a loving future before her.
I still think of her every Christmas Eve. The tiny church, the snowy precious night. The beauty of the simplicity of one story of my Mary Margaret and the echoes of love from another Mary, the mother of Jesus, who came centuries before her. The connectedness of the loving examples of these two Marys was not lost on me.
More than anything I'm grateful that Mary Margaret showed me what resilient love looks like. Her adoring gaze on life showed me how to hold fast to your faith during beautiful honeymoon times, all the way until the end of her life as she lay dying, still declaring that steadfast faith in Christ.
What I loved most about Mary Margaret was this overwhelming reassurance that everything was going to be okay. No matter what you faced, no matter what sort of hardship in life, all would be well, because you had faith. Hers was not the flowery, possibility-thinking kind of faith. More like a solid, sureness of knowing the story always ends in victory because of Christ's love for us.
Even though I'm starting to fully understand that now, I know I will always have miles to go. It's a lifelong pursuit that I will never figure all the way out. That's a good thing. Mary Margaret showed me what it looks like to be a living walking breathing example of a remarkable faith. She showed me what Emmanuel or God with us looks like through her lifetime of love.
What about you?
Every Christmas, my hope is to live a bit more true to Emmanuel each year. Who needs you to be Emmanuel for them today? Just as Mary Margaret did for me long ago, someone in our circle needs us to share that kind of loving presence too. I hope to honor the example I so graciously received and give it away to those who need it. The world desperately longs for us to share that kind of God with us.
Whether we can truly understand it, let's welcome this vast love into our hearts and homes. Let's live this kind of goodness out loud and practice deeply receiving the gift of unfathomable love this Christmas.
May we spend all the days we are given sharing Emmanuel -- that vast, God-with-us kind of love, with all those who cross our path.
You are an encouragement to me.