Christmas 1989 - Silent Night

This was a very sad time for me.  I was incarcerated with a life sentence.  I did not know when or if I was going to ever be free.  My dad was diagnosed with melanoma cancer and was dying.  My husband wanted a divorce.  Not to mention, I had lost my only child two years before.  

I was incarcerated at the Wisconsin State Mental Hospital on a forensic (criminal) ward.  I was being treated for my mental illness and I was responding well to the medications they were giving me. I was allowed to work painting ceramics on a civil (non-criminal) ward.  I would go to another building and the ceramics I painted were sold to the public to help them fund their program. 

The civil ward had a Christmas pizza party and I was invited to it, as I had been helping their program all year.  It was nice and they tried to make it as festive as possible—considering that most of the patients would have preferred not to be there.  Then a strange thing happened that I will remember all my life.  They started a makeshift talent contest.  Some of the patients would tell jokes or dance or whatever their talent might be.  I sat back and watched, since I can’t sing or dance.  Out of the blue one lady started to sing “Silent Night”.  It was not her turn.  And she wouldn’t stop.  And it was so off key.  And she was pretty low functioning.  And I was mad.  What gave her the right to sing out of turn, and off key when I had so much more going for me that she would never have?  If she were released she would never have my potential.  I was prettier, smarter with so much more to offer.  Why was she singing like that?  Her actions would haunt me for many years to come.  How dare she sing when my daughter is dead, my father is dying, I’m looking at what, another 10 years locked up, and my husband will not be waiting for me.  Please shut her up. 

Well, fortunately for me I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.  But where was this coming from?  She had Christmas spirit and it came through her song.  I had Christmas bitterness and I could not see past it. 

As the years went by, 13 of them to be exact, I would bury my father, I would be released from the State Mental Hospital, my husband and I would get divorced.

But God would continue to seek me and knock at the door of my heart to break down the walls that I had built to keep him out.  In December of 2002, I sat in my first official church service, of my own free will, and I found my own “Silent Night”.  I know now how she could sing as she did. It made no difference how it sounded, whether it was on key or not, it was sung more beautifully than I had ever heard.  But I was just too hardened, stubborn and prideful to have the words come out from my heart.

But now, I wanted to sing it, too.  I learned that if I have Jesus in my heart all of the things in this life I hold dear can be stripped from me and I will have everything I really need. 

Won’t you make “Silent Night” your song this year?

Silent night, Holy night

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon virgin, mother and child

Holy infant, tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace.