In Holland we have Sinterklaas. The Saint is not coming on Christmas Eve but on the 5th of December for this would be his birthday. He brings toys and candy. His helpers, zwarte pieten (black peters), chimney sweepers, throw all these treasures through the chimneys. You can put your shoe in front of the fire place or the front door and he will put stuff in it. You can leave a carrot for his horse and your list of favorites, so he knows what to buy. Some children believe in him until their seventh or eighth birthday.

However, there was this one little girl who has never believed in Sinterklaas although her parents tried to reason with her. “Honey, we don’t have a chimney and that is why he puts it in the garage.” Etc etc. But with two years of age this girl stood in the middle of the living room crying out: “I will not believe in Sinterklaas, until he stands in front of me in this very room” A few years later, the girl was ill again, as usual during this season. Sinterklaas and her kindergarten teacher felt sorry for her and so Sinterklaas came and visited the girl. She could hardly resist the urge to laugh out loud but since her little sister was in the room, she took her refuge under the table and wondered about how silly grown ups are.

At night, in her bed, when she felt she would suffocate from her asthma, she would take her refuge to the One Friend who would always come to comfort her.

He eased her thoughts, when she would think about the Greatness of Him being all over the earth as well as with her. When she was teased at school He would be there to love her. At one time she could not speak nor cry because she had no air, the doctor came and injected her four times and then said: “I think she will make it.” Although she hated the needles He was over her as a shadow of comfort. Her grandma had been ill for as long as she could remember. The little girl asked her Friend to make her better. She believed that her believe could move mountains and in this certain believe she fell asleep. But her grandmamma did not get better and even though she lived for thirty years with cancer she did not recover.

Little Eve did not know it, but the liar poured his poison in her heart. She thought her Friend forgot about her and that He did not care about her as she had believed He did. Loneliness, almost unbearable, entered her heart, to stay there for many years.

About twenty five years later, her grandma had died, her mom told her that her grandmother had written in her diary that she believed that she had so much extra time to live because of all the prayers. Eve, already grownup, had tears in her eyes. She wanted to believe but she doubted. Too many disappointments, too many doubtful thoughts but hope, there was hope.

Years later, her Friend who she kept a distant relationship with told her: I love you because of Me. Eve became angry: “Why not because of me”, she asked. “You live because of Me, my love”, He replied. Then a little light came in her heart and slowly but surely she became weak and cried. She now realised that her Friend had been with her all these years. Not once, the loneliness had been too heavy to bear. She was delighted: “He is just a prayer away”. He healed her and comforted her. She had four children and when she would sit down and feed them and comfort them, He would be there to feed and comfort the both of them. He held them closely to His heart and there they were, the three of them. Now she learns to be with Him on the mercy seat, between the cherub on the ark of the Testimony that is in her heart.

She knows she is chosen, she knows the calling on her life because He, the Love of her life from the very beginning, told her so. Every now and then the poison comes and sometimes she takes it in. But then He comes again and again and washes her over and over to be new and newer everyday.

Gretha van der Laan info@treeofdeborah.nl www.treeofdeborah.com