On a quiet night on December 25th several years ago, I was sitting around thinking about how Christmas had come and gone again for another year. After weeks of increasing frenzy, Christmas is over after only a few hours. Suddenly my phone rang and I picked it up. I heard a man's voice say, "Little Girl? This is your Dad."
A mixture of shock and excitement swept through my body like an electrical current. I felt transformed from a middle-aged woman to a little 7 year old girl again.
I responded, "Hey Dad! It's great to hear your voice."
Then the thought hit me that something must be very wrong for him to call after all these years of silence.
"Are you okay?" I asked hurriedly.
"Sure," he replied with joviality, " I just wanted to give you a call to wish you a Merry Christmas".
We made a couple more minutes of excited small talk, but when I asked him a specific question I got no response. After a few seconds pausing he said, " I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think you're my daughter."
He was right. We discovered that he had accidentally dialled the wrong number!
I asked him, " When did you first realize that I wasn't your daughter?"
He said, " Actually, I immediately suspected something was different. My daughter is never this happy to hear from me. Usually the moment she realizes it's me, she hangs up."
I told him, "I should have realized immediately too. My father hasn't phoned me at Christmas or any other time for more than a decade."
We wished each other a Merry Christmas and before we hung up the man said,
" I hope you don't mind me getting personal, but your father is a fool if he doesn't want to talk to you."
I told him I thought the same about his daughter. He had grown quiet with the realization that he still had to phone his daughter and he knew she would probably hang up on him once again.
I got even more personal and said, "Let's make a pact. Every Christmas when my Dad doesn't call me and your daughter hangs up on you, let's think of each other and remember that you have a ‘mystery daughter’ who would never hang up on you and I have a ‘mystery father’ who calls every Christmas to see how I'm doing".
Every year it seems that families become more fractured and Christmas gets more noisy and hectic. I suspect people make such a big commotion so they won't notice how lonely they are. I've puzzled long (and cried much) over people who ignore those in their lives who are desperately ready to love them unconditionally, yet have their own family members treat them with indifference and sometimes even contempt.
Deep inside us God has placed a blue-print of family life that is repeatedly declaring to us, "this is not the way it is meant to be! " In Psalm 68:6 it says, "God sets the lonely in families". A family is suppose to be a haven, a shelter, a fortress in trouble and a place where you are loved independent of who you are or what you've done. Yet Christmas is a dreaded and lonely time for many people, because it seems to put a magnifying lens to our lives and amplifies the fact that things are not quite right.
I would never tell you to love only the people who love you back, but my "wrong number father" showed me that there are people who are waiting and wanting to love me. I just may not have met them yet.
Now each Christmas finds me with three fathers: 1) a biological father who can't be bothered to know me, 2) a "wrong-number-father" who wants to know me and 3) a Heavenly father who knows me intimately. But not only does He know me, He loves me enough to send his Son from Heaven. His Son, Jesus, who was born in a lowly stable to demonstrate humility, to die an agonizing death on a cross to atone for my sins, to rise from the dead to give me hope for Eternity and to give me a reason to celebrate all year through with wonder and thankfulness.
"-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him-" (1 Peter 2:4 NIV)
Addendum:
When I wrote this story my biological father was still alive. He died less than two years later . My biological father is gone, my "mystery" father I will probably never meet, but my Heavenly Father remains. Continually demonstrating to me that his love for me knows no boundaries.
I no longer fear the things I don’t have or the people that don’t love me. Each occasion is an opportunity for Jesus to supply all that I need and much more.
Not having an earthly father is what initially drove me to my Heavenly Father. And it is each thing I lack that continues to draw me to him. For all that we don’t possess can be found in Him.
"He said to me, ' You are my Son, today I have become your Father' " ~Psalm 2:7 (NIV)
MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY DEARS!
Love Laura-Lee
