The Unexpected Christmas Gift by Pam McCormick

It was two weeks until Christmas. Normally, by then, I would have had our tree up, decorated with tinsel, lights, colored ornaments, and a bow on top of the tree. But that year, I didn’t want to put up a tree. I didn’t feel like decorating.

My mother had died in September, and the last thing I wanted to do was to celebrate the season. My merry was missing. I knew where my mom was. I remember a conversation we had on the phone the weekend before she died. She knew that I was worried about her. I was making plans to go visit her the following weekend. As much as she tried to tell me I didn’t need to come, there was a desire inside of me to be with her.

I remember her words to me on the phone before we hung up. The words are forever a part of me. My mother and I had not been close, and yet the next few moments on the phone with her would last a lifetime. My mom told me, “Pam, one day, you will go to Heaven, and you will see Jesus. I just wanted to tell you I would be right behind Him, with my arms open wide too, welcoming you home with a big hug.” God knew I needed to hear that.

I ended up driving to Fayetteville, NC, the following weekend to be with my mom. Sunday night, when it was time to drive back home, I got this feeling inside of me that I needed to stay. I thought it was because I wanted to stay with mom, but in reality, it was because God wanted me to stay with my mom.

Mom had begun to eat a small supper I had prepared for her. In the middle of the meal, she started having trouble breathing. She went to her chair and proceeded to put the air tubes into her nostrils. She knew something was wrong. She gasped as if the air was not enough. She cried out, “Help me, Pam.” Then she went limp. I pulled her to the floor and started CPR and palm compressions on her chest, all the while talking to EMS frantically that they needed to hurry and get there NOW. It was a moment that I don’t like to recall.

Why did I have to be there? My two sisters or my brother would have done a much better job. I beat myself up. I had failed my mom. I had “killed” her. I held onto this lie for months. It zapped all the joy out of me. There were mornings I didn’t want to get out of bed. I stopped going to church. It was too hard. I stopped talking to God. He had not helped my mom. I was angry at God. I was looking for someone to blame. I couldn’t see how much God wanted to restore me. Even now, as I write this, I am revisiting the hurt, and yet God has healed me and helped me see the whole thing through His eyes.

I have no control over life and death. If it was time for my mom to go home to be with the Lord, nothing I did could stop it. I recognized how little I was and how big God was. God was big enough to hold me until I could talk to Him again. God was giving me time to grieve. God understood my pain. He didn’t expect me to bounce back. He knew that I needed time.

So it’s December 2006 again. I was still not doing well. But God had a plan. Little did I know how beautiful that day would become? I cried out to God and told Him I was sorry for not understanding. I cried out and, in my distress, I truly didn’t think God had heard me, because I had distanced myself from God for so long, but He did. I told God I just needed an angel. I need an angel. God, please send me an angel. Please, God.

My husband went up into the attic, hoping to spur me into action, hoping to get me into a jovial spirit. My husband had not heard my prayer to God, but God did. George came down with a box sealed with duct tape and marked PAM in large letters. George said, “What’s this?” I had not seen the box before.

George whipped out his handy box cutter aka a “doohickey” and as the boxes’ flaps were torn apart; I was in awe of what I saw. Angels, angels, and more angels. I pulled one out and then another. The angels had belonged to my mother. They were one of her most treasured possessions, and she had given them to me. I will never forget that moment. My sister Judy had packed up Mom’s things, and in my grief, I had not seen. God knew. Did Judy know that her act of love was going to be an answered prayer from God to me? No, but it was.

God can take the worst situation and turn it into something beautiful, just because. God desires to heal our hurts, and even when we can’t understand what He’s doing, even when we’re angry at Him, it doesn’t change the way He feels about us. That’s how wonderful God is.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8 ESV)