Tag Archives: christmas

Drawing Jesus

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“Awhile ago, I asked Goldi to draw Jesus.

“This is what I want,” I felt a little like I was commissioning her for job, “I want a girl holding Jesus’s hand and they are looking out into a thunderstorm . The storm is changing into a beautiful sunny day. “

“Mom! “Goldi used her annoyed voice. The one that was toned with “No way! Not going to do that! Not going to happen!”

“Please, it would be such a great picture.” I whined . I begged. I put a cherry on top of her ice cream. ( not really, but when I was her age, it is what we used to say when we really wanted something)

“Oh all right.” Goldi stomped into her room and closed the door.

It was silent for a long while. I was encouraged. This meant she was serious about what I had “commissioned” her to do. After several hours, she came out. But she came out empty handed.

“Where is the picture?” I held by hands out ready to receive a masterpiece.

“I didn’t draw it yet. I will, But I was drawing something else. “

“Oh. But will you draw it?” I leaned my head in closer in order for her to see my big eyes and by arched eyebrows. This was the eyes ready to “pop out of my face” look to show I mean business. ( just like in my teacher days)

“Yes, mother!” Goldi sighed and wandered off to something else.

I snooped through her tower of sketchbooks to see if maybe she had at least started a picture. Maybe she was just keeping it a secret.

All I found was a collection of girls, boys, animals, a winter scene.. and a pineapple with sunglasses. So a pineapple with sunglasses was far more important than a precious picture of Jesus!

I remember Goldi telling me about a time when she and a friend were doodling together during a break at school.

“Hey, look. I drew myself. ” the friend said, ” Don’t you think I look like Jesus?”

“You don’t know what Jesus looks like,” Goldi said. “If you want to know about Jesus though, I can tell you about him.”

That was a “way to be bold” moment for Goldi.

How do you draw someone who was God’s Son? He was strong, kind, loving, and a truth teller. What does a man like that look like? All the pictures of Jesus that Goldi has seen show a guy with long uncombed hair and a beard. He is wearing a tunic, a cloak, and some sandals.

I couldn’t give up the idea of my drawing yet. So I searched more in all of her hundreds of sketchbooks hoping to find something. Page turn after page turn, I found a ballerina, someone on a sled, a koala, a tree, and on the last page…. Jesus. As a baby in a manger.

It was simple drawing. The baby Jesus was wrapped up in a manger of hay. Two small dots for eyes. Starlight shining down on his face. All done in pencil with no shading and no coloring.

What Goldi told her friend about drawing Jesus whispered to me.

“You don’t know what Jesus looks like.”

When I was way younger than Goldie, I tried to see the manger, and the face of baby Jesus. The baby that was that was born for me. What Goldi said was true. We don’t know what really Jesus looked like when He lived on earth. We don’t know what He looks like now in heaven.

Goldi tried to see Jesus. She tried to see Him first as a baby. A baby with eyes. A baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. A baby in a manger of hay. That is all she knew about Jesus. Everything else is a mystery.

“If you want to KNOW about Jesus, I can tell you about Him. ” Goldie told her friend.

So for now, Goldi did draw Jesus. She drew Him knowing what He looks like is a mystery. She also drew towards Him because she knows Him. For now, I have my picture.

The world outside was suddenly transforming so I pressed my nose against the window looking out into a world. I squinted my eyes to see if I could see the details of one snowflake and then I thought of Wilson.

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Wilson. Wilson loved to play outdoors. He loved to catch butterflies in the spring time and see sniff the sweetness of apple blossoms. He loved to leap with the grasshoppers in the summer. In the fall, he loved to jump in the leaves and feel them fluttering around him twirling down. In the winter, he would stretch out his hands and stick out his tongue into the cold crisp air, and feast on icy crystals.

If I blinked I could see through the winter shadows a young girl in a pink snow suit and white puffy hat standing in the middle of white. Goldi has her arms spread out and her nose pointed up. Every now and then she touches her nose to her mitten and sees what has come down from the heavens.

Wilson knew a secret about snowflakes and it seemed like only he knew the secret. He knew that each snowflake was different. He knew that there was no way to count each snowflake that fell. But he did know that every single flake he did see ( and that was many) was different. He knew because as he watched them fall, he wanted to save their beauty for all to see. So he sketched them. But they melted before he could finish.

Then, his mother gave him a camera. It was a camera with a microscope. He could zoom in on the snowflake and capture proof of what he knew was true. He took so many. It wasn’t easy. But he wanted to share his secret so that others would have the same joy in their hearts like he did when the snowfall.

“What do you see?” I was interrupting the precious hush of the snowfall but I wanted to know if Goldi knew the secret too.

“It’s it’s… like like a very cold flower.” she said. “It’s really really nice. It’s …. Prettiest- Goldi whispers the last word. It’s the best word she can think of to say. She is lost in wonder and is speechless.

“It IS the prettiest” I would say back smiling.

Wilson thought that snowflakes were as beautiful as apple blossoms and butterflies. He called them masterpieces. Most people didn’t care at first. But then, after he took hundreds of snowflake pictures, they started to look and wonder too.

One night the snowflakes were coming down so fast. There were millions and millions of them. Wilson was walking right into a winter storm. Wilson got sick and he died. But now, he is famous. There is a monument somewhere in a small town in Vermont. There is a book written about him too. It’s called Snowflake Bentley. If you read the book, you will know more about the snowflake secret.

Yet, this secret goes beyond the very fact that there are no two snowflakes alike or that they are prettiest. It’s a secret that puts anyone in a state of awe. Perhaps Wilson knew the deepest secret of all. I think Goldi knew then just as she knows now. The only way to know this secret is to be lost in wonder as you stand in the middle of the falling flakes. You have to believe even if you don’t understand. You have to believe that the snowflake comes from the highest Heaven where the one who makes them every winter lives. He makes them and with each one He whispers’ “I love you. You are mine. You are the prettiest.”

“He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before His cold?

Psalm 147:17

The Snowflake Secret of Mr. Winter

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The world outside was suddenly transforming so I pressed my nose against the window looking out into a world. I squinted my eyes to see if I could see the details of one snowflake and then I thought of Wilson.

Wilson. Wilson loved to play outdoors. He loved to catch butterflies in the spring time and see sniff the sweetness of apple blossoms. He loved to leap with the grasshoppers in the summer. In the fall, he loved to jump in the leaves and feel them fluttering around him twirling down. In the winter, he would stretch out his hands and stick out his tongue into the cold crisp air, and feast on icy crystals.

If I blinked I could see through the winter shadows a young girl in a pink snow suit and white puffy hat standing in the middle of white. Goldi has her arms spread out and her nose pointed up. Every now and then she touches her nose to her mitten and sees what has come down from the heavens.

Wilson knew a secret about snowflakes and it seemed like only he knew the secret. He knew that each snowflake was different. He knew that there was no way to count each snowflake that fell. But he did know that every single flake he did see ( and that was many) was different. He knew because as he watched them fall, he wanted to save their beauty for all to see. So he sketched them. But they melted before he could finish.

Then, his mother gave him a camera. It was a camera with a microscope. He could zoom in on the snowflake and capture proof of what he knew was true. He took so many. It wasn’t easy. But he wanted to share his secret so that others would have the same joy in their hearts like he did when the snowfall.

“What do you see?” I was interrupting the precious hush of the snowfall but I wanted to know if Goldi knew the secret too.

“It’s it’s… like like a very cold flower.” she said. “It’s really really nice. It’s …. Prettiest- Goldi whispers the last word. It’s the best word she can think of to say. She is lost in wonder and is speechless.

“It IS the prettiest” I would say back smiling.

Wilson thought that snowflakes were as beautiful as apple blossoms and butterflies. He called them masterpieces. Most people didn’t care at first. But then, after he took hundreds of snowflake pictures, they started to look and wonder too.

One night the snowflakes were coming down so fast. There were millions and millions of them. Wilson was walking right into a winter storm. Wilson got sick and he died. But now, he is famous. There is a monument somewhere in a small town in Vermont. There is a book written about him too. It’s called Snowflake Bentley. If you read the book, you will know more about the snowflake secret.

Yet, this secret goes beyond the very fact that there are no two snowflakes alike or that they are prettiest. It’s a secret that puts anyone in a state of awe. Perhaps Wilson knew the deepest secret of all. I think Goldi knew then just as she knows now. The only way to know this secret is to be lost in wonder as you stand in the middle of the falling flakes. You have to believe even if you don’t understand. You have to believe that the snowflake comes from the highest Heaven where the one who makes them every winter lives. He makes them and with each one He whispers’ “I love you. You are mine. You are the prettiest.”

“He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before His cold?

Psalm 147:17

Naughty , Nice, and a Newborn

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Right at the toe of my Christmas Stocking, something round bulged out. It couldn’t be! I thought. I haven’t been that bad. There were several sweaty moments of waiting for my parents to wake up and join us extreme early birds that Christmas morning. Was I so naughty that Santa left me a lump of coal?

I began to recount all my naughtiness of days passed. I had screamed at my brothers for messing up my room. I had told a lie to my teacher that I didn’t write Bruce loves Holly true love always on Holly’s math paper. But I really did write that. I told one friend I wouldn’t play with her just because and another friend that she was my new best friend. I had taken a neighbor’s brand new bike for a ride without even asking. Yes, I had been very naughty. I was going to get what I deserved.

But, I had done some very nice things to show I was really a good girl. I had set the dinner table every time my mother asked me to without complaint. I had kept my room clean. I had taken the dog out into cold night while others were asleep. I didn’t watch too much television and instead read a book. I had practiced my piano piece many times before the Christmas Eve Service. Surely all of those good things made up for the bad things.

At the toe of my stocking, I found. something round, sweet smelling and orange. I pressed that glorious ball of fruit against my nose and could taste its juice. Inside a long rectangular box, I found the doll of my dreams. Her hair smelled of cinnamon and grew longer with one button and shorter with the turn of a knob. I’d been a nice girl after all.

It’s a mystery how that Christmas was still merry and most of the Christmases after that. Well over half a century of Christmases, and I’ve yet to receive a lump of coal. Yet, a lump of hard, dirty, black coal is what I deserve, but have never received. How can this be?

Because in a dirty place where perhaps lumps of coal might have made a small fire. That fire was made to warm a newborn baby. That baby was absolutely perfect. He born to save us from being so naughty and help us to be nice, even one day absolutely perfect just like Him.

That gift alone made should have makes a Christmas merry just as it makes it now.