7 And she brought forth her firstborn son; and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7
It seems just moments before when I had drifted off to sleep thinking of the things I was going to do the next day with my friends. We met at a friends home to talk about spring trip plans to the Cayman Islands. After all, the spring semester had been hard at the academy we attended and all of our parents decided to reward us with free air travel and hotel just so we could unwind.
I was dreaming of of the flight being served first class food when suddenly I had this urge to use the bathroom. I tried to sleep through it, but my bladder was full and I knew I couldn't avoid the inevitable of walking up.
I search for the lamp stand, but didn't find it in the usual location I was normally accustomed to finding it. I slowly got up and immediately felt a draft of cold air from the window. This didn't seem right to me because my parents always kept the temperature at a comfortable level all through the night, leaving my brothers and sisters to sleep comfortable.
I slowly stood up while searching for the room light. I thought I felt a string hit the side of my face as I walked and so I naturally reached for it. I happened to pull it downward where immediately I was hit by the harsh light. As the suddenness hit me I realize that this was not the bedroom I was familiar with. Sure there was a bed in this room, but that was where the resemblance ended. My room was much bigger than the room I was presently in.
My room had a large desk with my computer, my printer, my video gaming system and my large flat screen Samsung television that sat on the wall. This room had none of that.Nothing matched in this room. Gone were the color coordinated patterns. Gone were the matching blankets. Gone was the spaciousness of my original bedroom. My eyes glanced at the wall and gone were the familiar pictures of friends, or my new car my parents bought me to honor me for successfully making the High school honor society. When I looked around the room I discovered that I no longer had my own room, but I was sharing it with another person. I looked at this sleeping figure and immediately noticed that he wasn't the same skin color as I remembered myself to be.
That was when I noticed my reflection in the round mirror that hung from the wall of this room. In horror I looked at my hands and discovered they were not the typical Ivory color I was accustomed to seeing, but they were black. I felt my heart racing. I looked down at the sleeping figure and discovered he was the same skin color I found myself to be at this moment. He appeared much younger than I was.
My eyes darted throughout the room in search of anything that was even remotely looked familiar to me from before. I couldn't find any of my trophy's from my previous year. I couldn't find my honor society welcoming letter and I couldn't find any pictures of my mom and dad. I wanted to run and hide back under the covers thinking just maybe if I drifted off to sleep I would wake up in the right room and in the right skin color. I had never associated with any black people in my life and now here I am one of them.
For the first time I began having regrets for the name calling and the taunting I did to the few blacks I did encounter in my life, or the times I remember as a child sticking my tongue out at them as my family walked out of this really nice restaurant and I happened to see this colored family getting into their car across the street. My mind seemed to go into autopilot with images of what was yet to come as I encounter this new life.
I felt a single tear drop falling down my face as I realized I may never see my dad, famed surgeon at the Mayo clinic, or my mom, a biochemist at Medtronics and certainly my friends who I just had dinner with discussing our spring plans to the Cayman Islands. I felt the call to empty my bladder and decided to go in search for the bathroom. As I walked down the much narrower hallway I ever remembered from my other life with it's multiple spacious rooms I heard the voice of an older lady. She had been weeping.
"Michael, is that you?"
I wasn't sure if that was suppose to be me, but decided to come closer to her so she could see me.
"Michael, it is you. Come closer so I can give you a hug."
Mom had been crying. She had the television, not the familiar high definition Samsung I was most familiar with, but a simpler smaller flat screen resting, not in a wall mount, but on a stand in the living room.
"Mom," I decided to ask, " Why are you crying?"
Mom reached for a tissue and dabbed at the wetness around her eyes.
"Michael, I just got terminated from my job today". I thought to myself what is a termination? That was about the most foreign sounding non existent word from my other life. I never knew my parents losing a job. I always remembered them being promoted into bigger and greater positions and I always remembered when they did we would take a special trip somewhere overseas.
I looked into my mom's eyes.
"You will get another job mom". I encouraged her. Mom cried some more as she saw the pictures of her children on the wall. Then I noticed what looked like a memorial picture of a different son with a single candle sitting right by it with a note she had written to him. I glanced at my new skin color and noticed from my reflection that he looked like me. Then I saw the name, hand printed with the words 'in condolence' underneath it.
I watched my mom's eyes as she lovingly looked at this son's picture. For the first time I felt this heaviness of heart for the son that had died. Tears were now streaming down both cheeks thinking of all the cruelties I had dished out all in the name of fun. I wished I could have taken back all of the harsh words, taken back all of the rocks I had thrown and I wished I could purge from my mind all of the putrid hatred that came out of the mouths of the white supremacists talk radio personalities. For the first time I was now on the receiving end of all that hatred and certainly didn't like it. I gave my mom a hug and let her weep into my shoulder........
Sometimes, to truly understand perspective we must try to put ourselves into the other persons shoes.
As I focus on that thought it occurred to me that this was what God did when he allowed himself to be born in a manger two thousand years ago to a teenage mom who was ill equipped to be a mom. Through this miracle birth and growing up God got to experience what life was like for ordinary man.
Through it all he allowed himself to be convicted for something he didn't do, to be tortured at the hands of the Roman guards, nailed to the cross, left to die and be buried and on the 3rd day to take his life back where he appeared to thousands and in the final analysis assured us that Jesus Christ had paid the price for all us to see heaven. Because of God's ability to put himself in man's shoes He was able to change the course of history.
Just maybe if we all would place ourselves in the shoes of the other person we truly would understand!
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