On the eve of Christmas…

As I take a few minutes to sip my coffee and reflect on the upcoming day, I have been thinking about you all and hoping that the real meaning of Christmas will shine bright in your heart this year. It has been such a tumultuous year for me, and I’m still regrouping from all that I’ve been through. I suspect many of you feel the same.

I know that for me, especially with the recession and the death of my father, I have come to a new knowledge of what is important in life. I see more clearly than ever that the pursuit of fame and riches is not bringing me happiness and all that matters is the family I love and the people I help. I’d rather have my granddaughter snuggling up to me telling me she loves me than all the radio and television interviews in the world. I’d rather receive the gift of seeing someone set free from pain and suffering in my office than being interviewed by a big shot media person. And as for books, it matters not how many are sold as much as how many get into the hands of the women who need them and changes their lives, so they too get to snuggle up to their family, their children, their husbands and say “I’m so glad you are mine…”

I came so close to squandering all this wealth of love and joy on so many occasions–most often when I was focused on the wrong things. I would secretly dream of the alternative life I would be living if I was just married to a different man, had more money, sold more books, was ten pounds thinner, had a bigger house, got to travel and see the world, etc.

But the truth is that like Dorothy in Oz, I’ve come to learn there really is “no place like home” especially in a year when so many have lost their homes, lost their jobs, lost a loved one, or lost a child to drugs, alcohol, or simply some angry misunderstanding. But we if we make really stupid mistakes, we cannot click their heels together three times and make it all go away. All we can do is endure and press on through the dark forest of pain and sorrow, sometimes for years. Sometimes we lose ourselves along the way.

I often think of Mary and Joseph on Christmas Eve. Can you imagine how frightened Mary must have been? After all, she was only about fifteen, nine months pregnant, plodding through the harsh night in the desert toward Bethlehem, sitting on the back of a donkey. Her discomfort must have been almost unbearable. Then to face rejection in the town, jostled through the crowds, and forced to sleep in a fetid, manure-filled stable, that surely had no heating or plumbing, possibly not even a fire where Joseph could boil water. The only thing she had to clean her baby was water from a trough, and rags torn into strips. No blankets, no hot food, not even a lantern to light her way. Not only this, surely they heard the rumors that Herod was sending soldiers to kill all newborn babies. How terrifying!

But because of her bravery and courage, a child was born that would change history forever. There didn’t need to be a radio or television interview, she didn’t sign a book contract, and she was never interviewed by Barbara Walters or Oprah. Instead, she had to endure flleeing into a strange land and living separated from her family and friends for two years, then coming home to what was most likely the ridicule and rejection of the priests and the other families in her tribe. Of course, then there was the constant tension of watching and waiting to see if this child was a truly special as they believed. Then once that was confirmed, being forced to endure watching that very son die on a rough cross in the most tortuous kind of death imaginable, not in the glorious manner of a king, as all believed would happen with the Messiah. I’m sure this is NOT the life Mary expected at all.

I’m not living the life I expected to live at all either, and I’m sure the same applies to many of you. But the promise is, just as the angel promised Mary, that if our life is submitted to God then the life we live, in its own way, has the capacity to change the history of the world–maybe not in the way Mary’s life did, but in the way God has intended. No matter the sacrifices we are making, if we focus on God’s will and not our own, we will find a life far more amazing than we could ever have imagined on our own.

That is my life story, and I pray that it will be yours as well. God bless you and keep you this Christmas season, and may the Light of the World shine brightly in your heart.  I love you Smart girls!