Time For Another Dispatch...

Dispatches From The Edge And Other Stories From The Margins:

Chosen to Love & Choosing To Love

This one is for the merry and the worn thin.

For those whose houses glow with laughter and for those whose hearts feel a little drafty tonight.

For anyone who has loved a child they did not help create.

For anyone who said yes when walking away would have been easier.

Draw close. This one has been stirring in my heart and mind for a long time now. So come. The fire is low, and this story needs listening ears.

Our hero, Joseph, walked because there was no other choice.

The decree had come down like a hammer from a faraway palace, stamped and sealed by men who would never see the dust on his sandals or the ache in his calves. Go. Be counted. Do what the law requires. So Joseph packed what little he could, steadied the donkey, and began the long road to Bethlehem with a woman he loved and whose story had already changed the shape of his life.

Joseph had not dreamed of this life he was in the middle of. He had dreamed of simple things. A steady trade. A roof that did not leak. A woman to love. Children with his eyes and Mary's laugh. He had dreamed of days of creativity, evenings that smelled of a cooked meal, and long nights, laughing by the fire with his beloved. Instead, he walked beneath a starry sky carrying a responsibility that felt heavier with every mile.

What kind of man does God call upon to father a child he did not create?

This was not his child. And yet Joseph chose to love this baby in Mary's belly.

God had asked something unspeakably intimate of him. Not his strength. Not his brilliance. Certainly not his pedigree. God had asked him to father a child who was not his and to do it without applause, explanation, or defense. Joseph did not get a throne or a title for this. He got stress. He got stares. He got whispers. He got the quiet weight of knowing that obedience would look like foolishness to almost everyone else.

What kind of man does God choose for a task like that?

Not a conqueror or a philosopher or a learned physician. No, God chose a carpenter. A man who knew how to measure twice and cut once. A man who understood that wood has grain and that you work with it, not against it. A man who knew that the most important parts of a structure are the ones no one sees once the walls go up.

Joseph was righteous, Scripture tells us as much. Which, in plain terms, often comes down to meaning that he was the kind of man who did the next right thing, even when it cost him something.

He loved Mary before the angel came. He loved her after the angel left. He loved her when the road was long, the donkey stubborn, and the night air cold. He loved her when labor pains stopped the journey again and again. He loved her when there was no room left anywhere, not even the kind of room that pretends to be kind.

And so they found themselves in a place where useful things are put away. It was a borrowed space with a low ceiling and the soft breathing of animals who could not know they were standing on holy ground.

There, through Mary's blood, sweat, and tears, a baby boy was born.

After some time, Mary slept at last. Exhaustion took her gently as Joseph sat nearby, listening to the quiet sounds of a stable settling into the night. Straw rustled. A cow shifted its weight. And somewhere outside, a blazing star had found its place above them.   

There, in the dim, not far away from Joseph, lay the child.

Joseph approached him slowly, the way you do when you are afraid of breaking something precious. He had held heavy tools his whole life, but this was different. This was a weight without sharp edges. This was warmth. Softness. This was breath against his chest.

He picked the baby up and held him in his arms.

The child stirred, small mouth opening, eyes full of eternity fluttering in that half place between heaven and earth. Joseph looked down at a face that would one day bear the weight of the world. He traced a tiny finger. He studied the curve of a cheek. He searched for familiarity and found responsibility instead.

This was the boy he would teach to walk. The boy he would teach to hold a hammer. The boy he would teach to say his prayers and wash his hands and look people in the eye. He would teach him how to be kind in a rough world and brave in a cruel one. All the things a good father teaches a small boy growing up in an ever-maddening world.

This man, Joseph, knew something the angels did not need to explain. Love is not proven by origin. Love is demonstrated by presence. And it makes me wonder how many of Christ's mannerisms were imbued from this good man, his earthly father?

Joseph did not know how the story would end. He did not know how much it would cost him. He only knew that God had trusted him with this child and that trust was not to be squandered.

So he held the baby close and whispered the word that would shape both their lives.

"My boy."

And for every step-parent, every foster parent, every adoptive parent, every quiet guardian who has stood in the background loving fiercely without credit, this Dispatch is for you. You are so dearly loved!

God sees the work you do in the dark.

God knows the miles you walk without complaint.

God understands thankless love because He has lived inside it, too.

And on that night, in a borrowed stable, a carpenter taught us all that the holiest love very often begins with a simple, courageous yes.