Lily’s Christmas Dream

“Jesus, all I want for Christmas is for my daddy to come back home. Please, Jesus, I promise to be a good girl and eat my vegetables, including squash, if you bring him back. Amen,” pleaded 6-year-old Lily as her teary-eyed mother, Erica, watched and listened in tormented silence. This had been Lily’s prayer for the past three weeks, ever since Erica and Van decided to end their 12-year marriage and Van moved out. 

Erica’s insides raged with agony as she watched their decision devastate their only child. Lily’s appetite decreased. She hovered just above the malnourished line. She rejected playtime with her favorite toys, and her usually bright and loquacious manner was replaced by a melancholy that suffocated her spirit and her voice. Erica didn’t know how she was going to explain to Lily that Daddy would never return home.

“Come on, Baby. Get under the covers,” Erica said, pulling the blankets back as Lily slowly climbed into her sleeping container for the next eight hours. 

“I love you, Lily Rose.” She gently kissed her on her cheeks and forehead.

“I love you too, Mommy.” Lily turned and faced the wall, pulling her knees to her tiny chest and sticking her thumb in her mouth, a habit she started two weeks ago.

Erica rose, turned off the light in the Winnie the Pooh-themed room, and gently closed the door. She made a mad dash to her bedroom. She didn’t bother getting on her knees. She threw herself onto her sleigh bed and wailed. Now it was her turn to pray, and she did so between gasping sobs.

 “Jesus, please.” The devastation in her soul found relief in her groaning pleas. “I can’t take seeing her like this. I’m so sorry for what we’ve done to her. It’s not her fault. Please don’t let her suffer like this because of our drama.” Groans she’d never made before came out so loudly she thought she felt the walls shake. “Please help her. I can’t reach her, but I know you can. I give her back to you. Please give me my Lily Bear back.” More sobs and moans, and then the curtain fell peacefully on the day.  

The radiant sunlight beamed through the bedroom windows like a laser, welcoming Erica to a glorious day. She lifted her head, squinted, and squirmed her groggy body toward it, acknowledging its presence. “What’s that noise?” she asked.

She swung her long legs over the side of the bed, yawned, and stretched her long arms. Then she heard it again. Her eyes popped wide, and she ran to Lily’s room, where she found her 6-year-old singing “I Got Shoes,” a song she had learned in her Sunday School class, on her play karaoke machine. 

Erica, gasping, covered her mouth with both hands and leaned back against the bedroom wall to keep from falling to the floor. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen—her 6-year-old, face glowing, feet dancing, singing joyfully from her heart. She was back. Her Lily Bear was back.

When she saw Erica, Lily dropped the mic, ran to her mother, and wrapped her little arms around her mother’s legs. “Mommy, mommy. I saw Jesus last night.”

“You did. What do you mean you saw Him, Baby?” Erica asked, bending to caress her baby girl’s face as if it were the first time she’d ever seen her.

“I saw Him. In Heaven.”

“What do you mean you saw him in Heaven, Lily?” Erica sat on the rug that had a huge pot of honey painted in the center. She pulled Lily down in front of her. 

Lily, growing frustrated with her mother’s dull spiritual senses, blurted out, “In my dream, He was in my dream!”

A sobering stillness settled over Erica as she recalled last night’s heart-wrenching prayer session. “Listen to her,” something whispered in her heart. 

“Tell me about it, Honey?” she asked. 

A wide grin broke out on Lily’s face. “I was in a big place with lots of green grass and rainbows everywhere.” She stretched out her arms to show how big the place was.

“You were outside?” Erica asked.

“Ahh haa,” Lily responded. “And the rainbows were singing and dancing in the sky. They were the most pretty rainbows ever! Then, Jesus sat me on His lap.”

“Okay,” Erica said, encouraging her favorite storyteller to keep talking. 

“And He said, ‘Ladybug, do you know how much I love you?’”

“He called you Ladybug?” Erica asked in disbelief. Next to trying to understand how umbrellas worked, Lily was fascinated with ladybugs.

“Yep.” She nodded her head energetically. He said, ‘Ladybug, I love you this much!” She again used her arms as a prop. “His arms were big like this, Mommy!” she said, jumping up and down as she stretched her arms as far as they would go.

Erica, barely able to speak and unsure what to say, said, “Wow, Lily Bear. That’s really big.”

“And you know what else?”

“What?” Erica asked.

“His arms didn’t end. They were wide like forever.”

Tears burst from Erica’s tear ducts like raging floodwaters breaking through a dam. She grabbed Lily, pulled her to her beating chest, and embraced her, letting liquid joy pour down her cinnamon-brown cheeks.  

“Thank you for giving me my Baby Girl back, Lord,” she whispered. “Best Christmas ever.”

The End

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