The Christmas Miracle

“I think I’m having a crisis of faith,” Anna said as she carefully pulled out and sifted through contents remaining in the bottom of the garbage disposal.

“Oh, Anna, you have been through so much this year with your son-in-law’s death in August, and your mom’s death a month later, and your husband’s illness, your son’s recent serious surgery, and your own health problems… I know you must feel like Job right now,” responded Rachel as she carefully took condiments and seasonings off the round, wooden Lazy-Susan on the center of the kitchen table.

Anna interrupted, “I just don’t know if prayer works.”

“Anna, of course prayer works, you KNOW it does"…. "Come On, St. Anthony, help us out here,” Rachel pleaded as she took out her smartphone and clicked the flashlight app. Then she positioned the bright white beam inch by inch around the top and bottom of the Lazy-Susan, and then the oval oak table, and then around each table and chair leg, and expanded out around the crevices and corners of the wooden floor. 

“Trey did a great job sweeping the floor after coloring and cutting your hair,” Rachel commented as she moved the beam of light across the floor.

“Yeah, I guess I should go through the trash now,” Anna  responded.  As she flipped open another trash bag, she began to carefully taking out and transferring the contents of the trash can from one bag to another.

Two hours or so earlier, as she was leaving work, Rachel had called Anna, asked if she was still at work or had already eaten dinner, as she thought her friend had been burning candles at both ends and could use a break.

‘No, I am out doing last minute shopping to get ready for our Christmas trip. But Trey is coming over to do my hair,” Anna explained.

“Okay, I will go pick up something for us to eat and will be over…on top of everything else, you don’t need to be worrying about dinner tonight….what do you feel like eating?” Rachel asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, I have been trying to eat more healthy food…., you decide…see you later, “ Anna said as she shuffled items in her cart to the checkout counter.

Rachel thought she would get something that Anna had not tried before, but was healthy and delicious. She made her way to a Mediterranean restaurant across town for a grilled chicken kabab with special garlic sauce and tabbouleh salad. As she was ordering food for two "To Go", the waitress asked if she preferred French fries or rice. Rachel thought for a moment, weighing the choices and decided that rice would be a healthier option.

As Rachel arrived at Anna’s house, and placed the Styrofoam containers in the bags on the counter, Trey arrived right behind her and began arranging items on the table. He poured mixtures from one container to another and set out hair clips and sheets of aluminum foil.

Trey draped a black cape around Anna and began to work his magic on each separate section of hair to create highlights.

After all the sections were completed and carefully folded within square aluminum sheets. Anna said,  “Well, I have to sit here and let my hair process, so we might as well eat.” 

Trey helped removed all his items and wiped down the table.

Rachel was glad to hear this as her stomach was rumbling ever since that delicious smell filled her car with grilled chicken and garlic aroma. So she jumped up and got a plate for Trey and scooped up some of the chicken and rice and garlic sauce from each of their containers and from the containers with side orders of tabbouleh salad, and added pita bread for the finishing touch.

The wait was worth it as the food tasted as great as it smelled.  By the time they finished eating, Anna’s husband James entered from the garage door into the kitchen and Anna asked him if he would like to eat as there was a lot of food left over. But he had just come from meeting friends at a Christmas gathering at a restaurant, so was not hungry.

Trey jumped up and said to Anna, “Hey, it’s time to get you over to the sink and stop that processing,” as he scraped leftovers into the trash can and washed off his plate.

Anna handed her Styrofoam cartons of food to James and asked him to put it in the refrigerator, which he did. Then he went to bed. Trey took off all the aluminum foil wrappers and started shampooing Anna’s hair over the kitchen sink, followed by hair conditioner. It was handy to have the sink sprayer to rinse out every strand of hair.

Rachel was still nibbling at her food when Anna moved from the sink to the kitchen table again. Trey had positioned the trash can nearby as he started clipping sections and snipping hair like a sculpture artist, confident from his 30 years’ experience.

When he finished his masterpiece, he carefully removed the black cape from Anna’s neck and lap and poured the hair clippings into the trash can. He then got the broom and dustpan from the laundry room and swiftly swept the floor and dumped the dust pan contents into the trash can.

“Hey, do you want me to get the blow dryer and style your hair?” Trey asked as he was dragging the trash can back at the end of the kitchen counter?”   Anna, was weary from the long day at work and all of the activities since then. ‘No, that’s okay, I’ll let it just dry naturally, thanks again,” Anna responded as she wrote a check and handed it to Trey.

Trey gathered up all his tools and headed out the door.

Rachel looked at Anna and they both said, “WHEW!” at the same time. It was a flurry of activities between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and just trying to get everything ready for both holidays was stressful. Rachel had loads of packages that she had successfully mailed off at the Post Office. Anna had the extra stress of arranging a family gathering at her son’s location in Boston, since he recently had extensive surgery and could not travel home. She had found a home to rent on Air BnB so that there would be room for her whole family. And she had secured tickets for everyone to fly there and mailed off Christmas gifts so they would arrive after everyone got settled. Suitcases still needed packing and last-minute arrangements for the pets needed to be completed before going to the airport the next afternoon.

Anna was discussing her check-off list of items to do, as she unconsciously fidgeted with the ring on her right hand and stopped in mid-sentence. “Oh NO….oh NOOOOOOO….she screamed out.”

She looked down at the ring on her hand and moaned, “I have lost the diamond in my mother’s ring!”

Rachel bolted up from her chair and stooped over Anna to get a better look at the circle of gold with four little gold prongs sticking straight up encircling nothing.

“When was the last time you remember the stone being on the ring?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t remember, but I think I had it when I got home from shopping,” Anna’s voice quivered.  It had just been four months since her mother’s death and this was the first Christmas without her mom. The ring was a little big and would loosely circle around her finger, and she kept moving it back in place without even knowing she was doing so.

“What did the diamond look like? Rachel asked with eyes darting all around where Anna was seated, and thinking of all the places that Anna had traveled that day.

“It was a pretty good sized, pear shaped diamond,” Anna recalled.

“Well, did you help Trey with running your fingers through your hair when he was shampooing and rinsing your hair?” Rachel asked looking at the double sink.

“Yes,” said Anna sadly, as she made her way across the kitchen to the sink. Her first thought was to check the garbage disposal. She and Rachel both knew that if it went down the drain of the other sink where Trey was using the sprayer to rinse Anna’s hair, that the diamond was long gone.

“Hey, I am going to go and check your car,” Rachel said as she slowly moved out the door to the garage and down the wooden ramp, and looked into the trunk area, back and front seats, and floor of the van with the flashlight beam from her smartphone app, illuminating each area. After circling slowing around the van and back up the ramp to the door and inside the hallway, she entered into the kitchen.

Anna, had just finished sifting through all of the contents of the trash can and was washing her hands.

“Well, when I first came in, you were coming from your bathroom in your back bedroom,” Rachel recalled.

“Yes, but James is sleeping now…I will look there tomorrow….but you should just leave as it’s so late,” Anna said in a listless voice.

Rachel looked at the kitchen clock and it was 11:45 pm. Yet she felt like she could not leave, she just had to keep looking. So she took off in the next room and down the hallway that lead to the bedroom, with her flashlight beam scanning small sections at a time.

Rachel came back into the kitchen and plopped down in her chair at the kitchen table. Her food containers were sitting in a bag as she had left them. All of a sudden, she heard this inner voice, “Check the food.”  She was arguing with herself internally about what a stupid thought that was in the middle of this crisis. Then she internally heard the “thought” again, “Check the food.” 

Anna was sitting across from Rachel, once again moving items off to look under the Lazy Susan, and eyeing Rachel as she opened up her food containers and started picking through her rice and chicken and tabbouleh, then disgruntled, she slammed the lid on the containers.

Rachel flipped the lids down and argued internally with herself. “What a stupid thought!” Then she heard the command again, “Check the food.” 

She looked at the refrigerator and stood straight up from the chair and deliberately forced her feet to take one step at a time across the kitchen floor.

Anna was looking at her curiously as Rachel put her hand on the refrigerator, swung open the door, reached in and carefully pulled out Anna’s Styrofoam containers. “You still hungry?" Anna asked as she looked puzzled as to why Rachel left her containers of food on the table and rummaged through Anna’s refrigerator to pull out her containers of food.

Rachel was totally embarrassed, and did not answer Anna, as she could not explain why she was doing this. She just knew that she HAD to do this, as she placed the containers on the butcher block island in front of the refrigerator. Rachel opened up the tabbouleh salad and leaned closely over it and inspected it carefully, then closed the lid.

Anna just closely watched Rachel, trying to figure out why she was messing with her food.

Rachel opened up the other square food container with sure expectation and began inspecting the contents. There was a lot of rice and a few pieces of chicken, but her focus zeroed in on the side of the container and she turned over a few kernels of rice with her finger and saw a brownish grey speck.

She turned it over and it gleamed.  With a quivering voice she squealed out, “Oh Anna, I have found it….I have FOUND it.” As she gingerly picked up the diamond and placed it in her hand.

She looked up and Anna’s eyes were bulging in disbelief.

“The Lord or Holy Spirit or something told me to check the food….I thought it was stupid when I checked my food,” Rachel explained.

“I know I saw that and wondered what you were doing!” Anna responded.

“But it was insistent and repeated to check the food….and that’s when I KNEW it was there,” Rachel said as she brought the diamond cupped in her shaking hand and transferred it to Anna’s hand.

“Oh Thank you, St. Anthony….thank you, Jesus!!!  See, Anna, prayers DO work!!!,” Rachel exclaimed.

“That was the Holy Spirit,” Anna whispered…”That was a miracle, especially considering that I would have thrown out that food container in the morning, since we are leaving town.”

“What a wonderful Christmas gift….the miracle of the Diamond and Rice!” Rachel laughed joyously. “Now you can get some sleep.”

“Yes, …..I definitely would not have had any sleep tonight without the miracle of the diamond and rice!” Anna confirmed with relief.

As Rachel got in her car and pulled out of the driveway, she had another "thought" that she shared with Anna in a text the next day: “As much as this stone means to you…..you are more loved by God….and your faith is even more precious that diamonds.”

Then Rachel kept thinking about the evening and the scripture in Luke 15:8-10 came to life:

8 “Or what woman having ten coins^* and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’10 In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Rachel thanked the Lord for His never-ending goodness and mercy and began to sing the song written by Lynn DeShazo, Lord, you are more precious than silver:

Lord, you are more precious than silver, 

Lord you are more costly than gold, 

Lord, you are more beautiful that diamonds, 

And nothing that I desire compares with you.