Gifts

 

Late November, I begin looking for the Pohutukawa flowers signaling the beginning of summer and more importantly heralding Christmas.  I watch our Pohutukawa tree daily, checking for the first flowers to burst out.  This year the trees are late.  The potential was there but still, like our lockdown, not yet.  It’s been a long season of waiting.  I noticed the first flowers whilst at Auckland hospital as I looked out at the majestic trees that surround it. There they were, the first glimpses of red amongst the deep green leaves.  Signs of hope, signs of a new season, signs of Christmas.  The lead up to Christmas is called “Advent” or waiting.  Waiting for the 'light of the world', waiting for hope, joy, and grace.  Waiting for Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to come.

The Pohutukawa flowers and Christmas are entwined in my mind. I remembered two Christmas seasons spent at Auckland Hospital and here I was for a third time.  Let me share Christmas joy, hope and love….

One Christmas Eve I took a phone call, the kind of phone call you never want to get on Christmas Eve.  My stepsister Kerry and her three year old son, Joel had been in a car crash. Kerry was in intensive care and Joel in Starship.  We spent Christmas day up at the Domain under the Pohutukawa trees sharing the vigil.  Kerry would pull through and receive the care she desperately needed.  In the evening Joel was discharged and brought home.  He sat on the couch next to his dad in his dressing gown, beaming at his grandparents, his aunts and family.  He had learnt a new word, “Congratulations!”.  Every present he unwrapped he would smile and say congratulations!  He would say the word even if there was no present as he looked around at us.  Joel was giving thanks.  We gave thanks for gifts that were more precious than the gifts under the tree.  Gifts of life, of love, of sister, family and a child who taught us to give thanks.  

Fast forward decades and once again I am at Auckland hospital with Joel, keeping vigil with him waiting for tests.  Joel gets seizures and he is holding out hope that these tests will reveal the source of his seizures and bring a medical cure.  We wait and we talk.  My mind casts back to Joel’s journey and once again I learn valuable lessons from this young man – lessons of resilience. Joel has “bounce back”.  After each seizure, even if he has split his head open, or broken a bone in a fall, Joel has always bounced back. Every knock back, put down or hard time, I see that little boy who could say  “congratulations” when life threw him a curve ball, get up, dust himself down and carry on.  We wait in hope, and we wait with gratitude. Gratitude that this expensive test is available to him, that the staff really care about him, that he lives in a country where this kind of treatment is possible and available.  We give thanks together that he is now a husband and a father both roles are the source of great pride and contentment. I find it a humbling experience.

This Christmas we have all come through a difficult season of uncertainty and to our dismay face ongoing uncertainty, but there is hope, there is joy, there is love and thanksgiving.  These gifts are the means for us to “bounce back”.    Let’s take the time in the “waiting”, to stop, reflect and be grateful for the many priceless gifts.

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word (Jesus). And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession. James 1:17-18 (NLT)