A different kind of Christmas story, but some of the characters feel the same. There’s a fourteen year old girl. She’s not pregnant, but she carries a heavy load. There are shepherds scattered throughout this tale, a high school principal, a guidance counselor, a police officer, keeping watch. Like the original story, a journey must be made, lodging and assistance is required and time is of the essence, but the innkeeper in this story is not a busy, distracted hotelier. It is an overwhelmed and completely impersonal mental health system.

Zero in on the setting for this drama- not a crowded, filthy stable, but an empty, windowless cell in the psychiatric lockdown unit of a suburban ER. No manger for a bed, rather a two inch thick vinyl covered mat on a bare tile floor. There are shepherds here also. They wear military type uniforms. They confiscate and lock up your possessions, show you the stance you are to take as you are “wanded” for contraband, and control the door in and out of the unit, in and out of your cell, a door with no handle on your side. They are just doing their job. Our fourteen year old young lady, scared and confused, bears her load with grace and dignity and waits for help.

Like the stable on that long ago night, the lockdown is crowded. Neighbors arrive on stretchers, in handcuffs, sometimes other restraints. They bring their people, just like our young lady brought you. We make a strange little collective, a collage of humanity, the dazed, the raging, the profane, the apologetic, the apathetic, and the sad. The sensory deprivation of the cell, the brightness of the light, the lack of information about what to expect, what to hope for, tests you.

A bed in one of three in-patient units in the city… that’s what you wait for, but like the original Christmas day, you are in a crowded city teeming with activity. Information is fed to you in little scraps sandwiched between thick slabs of boredom spent waiting for more little scraps until you feel like a lab rat staring at your door, listening to conversations in the hallway, watching the activity that passes by. With no clocks anywhere, time doesn’t pass so much as pause. The challenge for a fourteen year old in such a place is to keep her humor sharpened, to wield it defensively as needed, and sometimes to flatten it like a shield across her heart when the impossible looms.

Unlike our young lady, you are allowed to exit the lockdown and re-enter the larger world. When you do, the contrast is unsettling. It is December and all the world is planning a party. Swags of evergreen and twinkle lights drape the hospital doorways. The halls are swarming with cheerful ladies in green jackets selling cakes, cookies, wreaths. Tables are lined up featuring jewelry, bobbles, handmade crafts from around the world. You can barely navigate through the common areas. Even in the hospital, people are shopping.

A wise man finds his way to our girl’s cell, a pediatrician. He is kind, and gentle, but he cannot provide a bed at an in-patient unit. Another wise man, a psychologist bearing gifts, recommends two books to read when our fourteen year old returns home. He is apologetic that he cannot find a room at the in-patient unit.

A day, a night, a day.

It is Christmas in America, and I am looking everywhere for Jesus.

Maybe Christmas is just a holiday for happy people. Maybe the way we celebrate Christmas, the commotion, the gift buying and giving, the lights, the music, the hype and expectation of it all does nothing to invite the sad, the discouraged, the frightened, the lonely. A crowded church full of joyous, well-dressed people singing familiar songs does not automatically banish the demons that prey on the downtrodden. Nothing about a brightly lit tree or a house full of relatives can fill an empty heart. No gift that comes in a box or a bag will make up for returning home to a broken life at the end of the day.

A fourteen year old wakes up on a December morning and isn’t certain she can make it through the day without hurting herself, but like the young woman in Bethlehem whose baby comes early into an overcrowded world, there is no room at the inn for her. It’s a different kind of Christmas story, but it’s the one I lived this past week.