Months ago I was asked to sing for the Easter program at church. I was sick at the time but had several weeks to recover and planned to be okay. The weeks proved to be awful, with my illness and coughing getting worse, my lungs crackling and wheezing persistently.

I knew I could cancel, that the person organizing would understand but, there was something in me compelling me to do it anyway. The thought, “it doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful” pressed on me again. The doctor said I would be unable to sing but it didn’t change what I knew in my heart. I would sing. I knew also in my heart that it would not be what it could be if I were well.

My son asked me a couple of years ago if you could say no when you are asked to do things at church or are given a calling, like a responsibility to teach or serve. I told him yes, but there are certain things you will not get to feel.

That was what happened here. For weeks I had been listening to the song at night to try to learn it without singing/coughing my way through.

Easter morning began much like the other mornings I had been experiencing, hopeful that those first two hours of calm before the storm of coughing returned would actually be the beginning of healing. I hoped that I could time it right and squeak through that small window.

I prepared carefully, used a heating pad on my sore longs and gathered cough drops and warm herbal tea. My most important preparation came from prayer, it always does.

The song I was going to be singing is called, “This is the Christ.” I knew God knew my condition and the desire I had to help people, to lighten their burdens by bringing His message of hope and peace and joy. As I prayed, the line “this is the Christ” came to my mind with a love and glowing awareness.

“This is the Christ” could be seen in people emulating him. My thoughts were taken off me and my offering to the people who were sacrificing and struggling and trying to be to church themselves. I thought of the heroic moms and dads of small children, the single dad who fixes his daughter’s hair and comes every other week. The toddling teens and adults, trying to find their way, willing to be on a church pew. The service. All the service of volunteers to teach, to lead, to tithe.

I felt inspired that day to add my offering to those who I see but hadn’t really seen with this level of appreciation before, and I felt a new certainty that this, this kind of love and sacrifice is the love of Christ.

Fast forward to this Christmas season.

Busy trying to prepare to teach my high school cooking class, I was prayerful that I could bring His light and message to these youth, but it was feeling complex and difficult. The line from “What Child is this” came to my mind. “This, this is Christ the king.”

It settled on me like that Easter moment did. This, this is Christ. I felt like “this, this” was the preparing, the teaching, the trying to be like Jesus, the trying to do the things he’d have me do.

Again, my awareness was brought to the efforts of so many who sacrifice and serve, like the teachers who pull into parking lots late and try to put their cares on hold or the nurse who comforts scared patients who would rather be anywhere else but an oncology unit.

Yesterday in a small room in a small home, I saw the love and devotion of family members who care for their three aging aunts. Their three beds tightly arranged.

This, this is Christ the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud
The Babe, the Son of Mary.