what we have to give: Christmas reflections

“Generosity begets generosity.” - Jesus Christ

Leap. Crash. Split. 

I ran down the studio steps to find my seven-year-old boy laying prostrate on the floor yelping in pain. Category 5. The kind of cry that screams out: something is actually wrong! I scooped him up without hesitation. Held him close. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay,’ I hushed into his ear. ‘No…’ my wife replied rushing on the scene. I leaned his face back as saw his crimson red blood gush down from his eyebrow. 

‘He’s bleeding…’ 

‘Let’s get you cleaned up,’ I said. 

‘We’ll be going to the hospital,’ I said. ‘Stitches,’ I thought.

My son cried at the thought of it. Shook. Sobbed. And bled.

Within minutes my son and I were sitting in the emergency room at our local hospital. It’s a quaint and quiet place. Short wait times. Friendly staff. We’re fortunate. We can see the building from our house. By now we had seen the nurse, were triaged and assigned a room. We played games, chatted, and waited for the doctor. 

‘My boy,’ I said looking into his beautiful face. ‘What is with you and getting hurt at Christmas?! Your eyebrow today. Broken arm two years ago. Pneumonia as a baby…’ He grimaced and shrugged his shoulders, ‘I dunno?!’ he replied.

No sooner had the words left my mouth when I realized where we were sitting. Down the hall. The last room on the right. A typical small-town hospital room filled with all kinds of gadgets. Rolling carts. Hanging lights. Curtains. And in the far corner sat a baby’s incubator. 

It struck me like an 8-pound fruit cake. ‘Judah,’ I whispered, ‘this is the room… This is the room where you were sick as a baby. They laid on that thing right over there to keep you warm…’ I pointed to the incubator. I felt wetness around my eyes. 

‘Huh,’ Judah said with little interest. 

The doctor came in. An older woman. Her face covered but smiling. A nurse followed. They glued my boy’s brow and applied a tiny piece of tape to keep the cut from reopening. ‘No more jumping!’ It took all but 7 minutes. 

As we walked into our kitchen, at home and happy, Judah showed his wound. I explained the happenings of the hospital - how brave Judah was, and how firm the doctor was cleaning his cut. My wife's eyes sharpened. ‘Who was the doctor?!’ she asked intently. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I wasn’t paying attention.’ Of course. “Man eyes” we call it in our home. Missing something that is right in front of you. 

‘I bet it was her.’

‘Who?’ I asked.  

‘She came out of retirement to help in the pandemic!’

‘Who?!’

‘The doctor who saved Judah’s life when he was a baby…’

Older. Short hair. Gentle but firm. Could it be?! Almost seven years to the day - in the same hospital - in the same room - the same boy - being saved by the same kindhearted doctor?!

I rushed back to the hospital, desperate to find out. I explained my story to the door nurse. My eyes welled with tears as I looked around the familiar room. The moments of dread and panic rushed back as I rewatched in my mind’s eye images of my tiny baby boy being rushed in - stripped naked - checked over - given oxygen - and rushed by ambulance. He was in the fight for his life. Literally. We didn’t know at that moment - but he had double-lunged pneumonia. He was 5 weeks old. Tiny. Fragile. Sick. Without the decisively firm and gentle hand of a sacrificial doctor - he very well may have died. 

‘She is behind closed doors,’ the door nurse said. ‘But I can pass along a note if you’d like?’

I smiled. Gave my name and left without. 

And for a second time in seven years, I was unable to thank that kind-hearted soul for helping my boy. 

She will never truly know what she gave to us. 

Her gift of quiet open-handed generosity. 

An arm-piece of God Almighty. 

There’s precedent for this kind of giving at Christmas. Think of the Magi who left their homelands in search of a child they knew little about. When they found Him they gave gifts of gold, myrrh, and frankincense. Fine gifts indeed! But imagine the cost of their trip! The dangers and perils of such a long journey. They gave far more than precious material things. Or think of the shepherds who left their literal livelihood in the fields to search out the babe in a manger. And of course - ‘twas God who gave us His Son. The tiny-king-babe. Born into a world that would reject and kill Him. A world He would renew through new life in His name by His Spirit. 

Gift-giving is in the bones of the celebration of Christmas.

But more than the pageantry of presents - it is the quiet, unspeakable, and often unknowable gifts that make the most impact. Time, talents, warmth, care. A meal. A smile. A scribbly drawing by a squirmy kid. The uninvited guest at the table for a meal. The stranger welcomed inside. Or a firm and gentle care of a doctor who serves without expectation. 

This Christmas I have been challenged anew to give. See opportunity around me. Love deep. And give of what I have. 

In the words of the Christ-child-grown-man: “Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.”

Thank you kind doctor for saving my boy’s life so that you could fix him up seven years later. 

Merry Christmas. 

-amos