Bebeh 

Monday, December 20, 2010 - Posted by Amanda Bast
On Thursday I spent the whole day running errands with my mother. After I narrowly escaped being married off to a radio DJ from Owen Sound, lugged chicken and vegetables and talked with Mennonites with unibrows in the market, we ended up at the grocery store. Somewhere between a sweet chat with a senior and me bothering my mother to buy candy, Christmas became real. More so than ever before.

I received a text from my dear friend Annie, announcing the birth of her baby, Sylvan William. Her husband Luke then texted a picture of their sweet little boy (well, 8lbs 11oz...not that little!). Then bam.

The reality of Christmas came bowling down the cleaning product aisle and hit me like a ton of bricks.

At first my brain and heart were so overwhelmed, my thought process went something like this: Mary...pregnant...baby...Jesus...Christmas...Jesus...baby....Saviour. Excuse me, WHAT? Then my head was flooded with questions.

How long was Mary in labour for? Did her water break on the donkey? Did the donkey get wet? How close together were her contractions? Was she squeezing Joseph's hand the whole time? Was he woozy just thinking about it? Or did he handle that birth like a champ? Was Jesus breech? What would happen if babies were breech back then? Did he come out with a cone head? Or was he like my brother, with veins sticking out of his head thus making it look square? Did Joseph catch Jesus, or did he kind of just plop out onto some straw and cloth? What did they use to get all the goo off of Jesus? Did Mary cry? Did Joseph cry?  Did Jesus scream bloody murder when he came out? How did they cut the cord? Did he feed properly right away? Did he have messed up sleep patterns? When he was hungry did he cry? Did he ever cry? Or was he just a quiet perfect little baby with perfect sleep patterns? How old was he when he started to crawl? What about walk? What was his first word? Did he ever say no? Did he go through the terrible twos? Did he cry when he fell down? Did he know he was going to save the world? Isn't there a cheesy song about this?

These questions and more keep running through my brain. I think it has esploded (yes Lucy, esploded) several times over. I want to know the answers to these questions and it sometimes drives me batty that I won't figure it all out. At the same time I know that I'm not supposed to figure it all out (right away, at least). The beauty of Jesus and what he has done for us is that we won't ever truly "get" it. There is always something to be learned and big things to realize. And for that, I am very excited.

Merry Christmas!

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