The Sunday After Christmas

Early this morning I woke up in a half sleep to a familiar voice that I used to hear often when I was younger. After a moment or two of listening, I realized it was Dr. Charles Stanley. Not thinking about what I was doing, what time it was, or where I was supposed to be, I kept listening. He was talking about the true meaning of Christmas, and the symbolic meaning of the manger that some of our politicians would love to get rid of. Strangely, I remember most, if not all, of his sermon. Let me explain why listening to a church sermon is out of the ordinary for someone like me.

When I was small, I adored my great grandmother Sarah (love you grandma). Anyway, my family moved from Grandma Sarah's home for some time, and when I returned, I went straight to see her. What I found was not my grandmother, but some other person who looked like her. Bed-ridden, gnarled, with no sense of time or place and no ability to form words. This was not my beloved grandmother. Her room smelled of betrayal and diapers. She had left me. I left that room without so much as a hello or goodbye. I had disowned her and cast her aside as if she was never any friend of mine. Some time after, I heard my mother say, to some extent, that it was my grandmother and her children's fault (aunts and uncles), that Grandma Sarah had become this way. They had stolen her from me, and so I had come to hate them all. They were no family of mine. I thought, how could they let that happen to her? I lived at that house, with my ailing great grandmother, filled with the most putrid and soul hardening disgust of that family. The same family that attended church every Sunday, every Wednesday. Walked around carrying Bibles as if they were totally and utterly sinless in every way. At least, as a child, that's how I saw it. Hypocrits, they were. So, in turn, I came to hate the church. I couldn't bring myself to stand being in the presence of one, let alone inside it, to stand in prayer with the very people who had taken away the most religious and caring person I ever knew. There was no way.

After my parents separated, or perhaps even before, my mother always listened to Dr. Charles Stanley, because he never talked about money like Dr. Price did (although I liked his music better). He never yelled, always made sense, and had a soothing voice that didn't put you to sleep. He was the one person I would ever listen to, despite my dislike for anything having to do with a church. So I suppose it makes sense that all of a sudden, one Sunday, I wake up to Dr. Charles Stanley's sermon on tv. Maybe Someone is trying to tell me something? I like Dr. Stanley simply because he makes sense. Doesn't just preach straight out of the bible, he tells it in ways regular people can understand. Isn't that what a preacher, reverend, etc. is supposed to do? Anyway, while he talked about the meaning of Christmas and it's significance as the turning point of religion, I remembered that I had always wanted a Bible but could never afford one. After the sermon I went to see how much they were on their website. Of course, the one I wanted would be $89, a leather bible just like Grandma Sarah had (at least I think it was leather). I registered on the website anyway and read through their magazine. Santa Claus was real! Well, he was never called Santa Claus back then, but his name was Saint Nicholas, and he didnt live in the North Pole. He lived in what is now called Turkey. So what does that say about all the people who say he wasn't real? As the year comes to a close, I wondered what will be my New Year's resolution. I suppose it would be to answer the one question that has been haunting me for half my life now. What is my purpose?

If you don't know who Dr. Charles Stanley is, look him up on his website, intouch.org.

<3>