Listen for the Whisper

by Donna Poole

I love the hustle and bustle sounds of the season, little bells jingling on street corners, big bells chiming in church steeples, people laughing and talking, and music everywhere. I never tire of Christmas music!

I got a text from one of my grown children the other day. “I heard ‘Silver Bells’ and it made me miss you. It’s one of your favorites, right?”

Sometimes I sing my favorite Christmas songs, and then someone in my family finds some “real” Christmas music to play that isn’t off key, too loud, and monotone.

I get as excited as a child when I hear, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” I bow my head and worship to the beautiful strains of “O Holy Night.”

Sometimes the memory of a granddaughter’s version of “What Child is This” sings itself in my mind, and I chuckle. She was little and didn’t know all the words, so she made up her own. Her song went like this: “Your stinkin’ lambs and your stinkin’ goats, and I will get lots of pr-e-sents.” Like any country kid, she knew the manger would have been smelly.

Not only do I like the music, I like the organizing and the shopping, the rushing and the cleaning, the cooking and the wrapping—and we do a lot of it. There are twenty-five just in our immediate family, and we have several gatherings during the holiday season. It began on Thanksgiving Day when relatives from near and far joined us for a meal of turkey and ham and love and laughter. Sunday we’ll feed our church family in our fellowship hall after church; it’s our way of saying, “Merry Christmas! We love you, and we thank you for your love and kindness to us all year.” Next comes family Christmas, when hopefully all our children and grandchildren will gather for a day. Last, on Christmas Day, we’ll celebrate with just the four of us who live here.

I even like the noise in our small kitchen when we squeeze around each other to cook, bake, load and unload the dishwasher, and handwash dishes to keep up with the big bake-a-thons we do to feed a crowd.

People with normal brains might be able to do all this without lists, but lists keep me sane. One notebook holds menus and grocery lists for the gatherings. The Christmas notebook categorizes gifts and the items going into stockings. I have several Christmas notebooks; this one I started in 2011. I like the sound of the yellowing pages flipping until I get to 2024 and find the name I’m searching for.

John and I wrap gifts together. I like to hear his box cutter slicing through the wrapping paper, the tape as we rip it off the roll, and the complaint the tags make when we pull them loose from their sticky paper.

After not being allowed in stores for several years because I was too immunocompromised from cancer treatments, I even like hearing the sound of squeaky shopping cart wheels, and tired shoppers correcting cranky children.  

But sometimes, perhaps because I was away from crowds for so long, the noise can be overwhelming. I feel like the old man in the children’s book, Too Much Noise. And that’s when I pause and listen for it, and when I hear it, I’m amazed at the wonder of it all.

In the midst of the busyness of life, I listen for the “whispered sound of sandaled feet.” I read that phrase somewhere and love it. It’s Jesus’ birthday we’re celebrating, after all, and we can hear him everywhere this season, if we get quiet enough to listen. Someone, not me, paid for a friend’s meal in a restaurant the other day. I heard about a nurse in a hospital being kind to someone I’m praying for. Someone said, “Human love is Jesus showing his hands.” In every kindness I hear the echo of his heart.

I don’t like the sounds of sorrow; who does? Yet even in tears we can hear whispers of our Lord’s comfort. A friend of fifty years went to heaven last week, and her last mile was not easy for her or for her family. But there were more than tears around that hospital bed; there were hymns played and sung, sweet memories rehearsed, love given and received. Our church family drew close, supporting them with food, love, and prayer. Now they are planning a funeral meal and hoping it will bring some comfort. A little girl made a sympathy card for the bereaved husband. She drew a picture of him and his wife holding hands. She printed. “You will be okay. We love you. Your church family loves you.” He treasures the card. He hasn’t said so, but I know what he hears. He hears the whispered sound of sandaled feet.

In the twinkling lights that add a glow to dark December nights, we can hear Jesus say, “I am the Light of the world, and Light will always overcome darkness.”

Light and darkness. Darkness and light. How dark the world would be if Jesus hadn’t come to carve out a path home to the Father! A supernaturally bright star announced his birth to wise men. Angels appeared like flashes of lightning to shepherds in dark fields to tell them the Savior had been born. Jesus died on the cross with the horrifying darkness of our sin taken into his own heart. Even the sun hid its face for three hours. But three days later, Jesus rose victorious with the sunrise. I imagine it was the most beautiful sunrise of all time.

And what does God promise to those who believe Jesus died to destroy their sin and take them to heaven? I heard it again last night.

Last evening our power went out. In an instant darkness snuffed out light. Work came to a sudden stop. I couldn’t flip through the pages of my notebooks and try to figure out how I was going to get everything done in time for Sunday’s meal for all our friends at church. We couldn’t cook, or shop online, or wrap gifts. So, in that deep darkness, we went to bed early. As we always do, we listened to a proverb before we fell asleep. Half awake, I heard these words, ^“But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” –Proverbs 4:18

The Christmas lights weren’t shining on our tree; there wasn’t a single star in the sky, but Christmas had never looked brighter. Because, in the windy darkness of a winter’s eve, I heard the whispered sound of sandaled feet, and they walked beside me on a path that will shine ever brighter until I get to the glory that’s heaven itself.

“Glory!” The angels thundered in the night to the shepherds. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men.”

And then they left, and their light faded from the sky. But that baby Jesus? He brought with him a light that the darkest night of earth can never dim.

God loved us and sent his son. Listen for that whisper and be amazed at the wonder of it all.

The end

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These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

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