Our family had a lot of great Christmases while my sister and I were growing up. Christmas was always (and still is) a big deal to us. We enjoy the whole celebration – from the family get-togethers to the gifts to the special programs at church. And we have our special traditions… Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house, where my Poppy always pulls out a Bible so we can read the story of Christ’s birth before we exchange gifts… And one of my personal favorites, the annual “Tacky Tour” we used to take late on Christmas Eve night, where we drove around town voting on whose decorations were the tackiest (sounds harsh, I know, but it sure was a lot of hilarious fun).

Through all the years, though, it’s funny which Christmas stands out in our minds as one of the most memorable to us. You can ask my sister, my dad, my mom, or me, and chances are, we will all give you the exact same answer… Christmas of 1991.

We lived in Columbus, Ohio (Canal Winchester, to be exact), in a small 2-bedroom apartment with a loft. According to my parents, it was the most financially bleak year my family ever had when I was growing up. My dad, who is one of the most highly skilled people on the planet, couldn’t find steady work, and my mom was working an office job that didn’t pay that much. They tell the story of how they didn’t even know how we were going to have gifts for Christmas that year until some friends unexpectedly gave them a small cash gift. They used that to buy our Christmas dinner – my dad’s now-famous Fettuccine Alfredo – and to buy Staci and me a few small Christmas gifts.

I remember it well. We got the movie 101 Dalmatians to share, and we each got a little metallic foil engraving art kit. It may sound random, but we thought it was the coolest thing! It was simply a small piece of cardboard that was completely black. Then you took an artist’s knife and scratched away the black coating to reveal metallic gold or silver underneath. By etching away the black film, you could make beautiful designs and images based on the pattern that came with the kit. One of them was a gold lion or tiger… It looked so majestic and pristine with its glimmering image shining out from behind the dark surroundings. It was by far our leanest and one of our favorite Christmases. 

Fast-forward 22 years. (Wow, am I that old?)

The end of 2013 has seemed a little blah, to be honest. I found myself stressing in recent weeks over our budget for Christmas. Despite our plans and intentions, things kept coming up (not the least of which was the arrival of our new baby), and we hadn’t been able to put the money aside like we’d planned. The closer we got to December 1, the more pressure I started feeling about how we were going to meet our Christmas budget.

That was just the petty financial worries. Overall, 2013 has been quite an exhausting year. We have walked through unprecedented loss and difficulties this year, both as a family and as a church. The harshest of these were when tragedy struck our congregation in March, September, and most recently in November. Families are hurting this holiday season, fragmented by the loss of loved ones. And what’s more, I can’t explain any of it. None of these losses make sense.

How do I get in the “Christmas spirit” with so much seemingly stacked against us? There are going to be empty chairs at Christmas tables this year. There are going to be voids in people’s hurting hearts. Questions are going to remain unanswered.

In that regard, 2013 seems to be overshadowed with insurmountable darkness. Bleak. Black. Let’s get it over with so we can start a new year.

Then I remember Ohio…

…And those little black art boards, completely undesirable to look at…unless you know that they hold special, glimmering treasures beneath for whoever will take the time and painstaking effort to both find and create the beauty waiting to be revealed.

See, as challenging of a season as Ohio was for our family, it yielded some of the most beautiful, long-lasting breakthroughs in our lives. That bleak, black season for us was what God used to birth through my parents, grandparents, and uncle & aunt the vision for what is now Church Alive International. The church might not have ever been a thought, much less a realization, had we not gone through that seemingly pointless season of difficulty. There would be a huge void in many of our lives without it. A dear member of the church may not have ever found freedom from cocaine addiction over 15 years ago. A husband and wife may have never overcome the silent resentment that was keeping them apart. Young girls and boys may have never found freedom in forgiving their absent fathers. Hurting people may have never known the acceptance of a church family who loves them regardless of their baggage. Men might not have a spiritual father, and women might not have their spiritual mother… if not for that very bleak season in our lives, when God took something dark and decided to create something beautiful out of it.

We all know this, but it hit me in a fresh way today. Maybe this Christmas isn’t about what I don’t have. Maybe it’s not about what we’ve lost. Maybe it’s not about getting 2013 over with and behind us.

Maybe it’s about taking what otherwise would be a very dark, black canvas – whether because of loss, strained relationships, or finances – and using whatever it is that we do have – family, humor, memories, talents, and most importantly, our faith in God – to etch away the darkness until we both create and expose the beauty that lies beneath. Maybe it’s about allowing the light of God’s Presence to fill up and overtake the emptiness. Maybe it’s about holding out hope and in faith believing that we can still end this year greater than we started it.

Maybe the dark parts of 2013 haven’t even really been about us. Oh, true, they have been very personal. And while I still can’t explain the tragedies (and still don’t believe God caused them), I do believe a greater purpose can be brought out of them. And I believe that greater purpose is both for you and me, as well as for people we’ve never even met yet.

So when it comes right down to it, all I really want for Christmas is for each one of you–my dear family and friends and maybe even people I’ve never met–to experience the love and peace of God’s Presence, and as a result, to be able to find beauty in every moment God gives us as we end this year.

With that said, I wish you a very, Merry–full of cheerfulness, laughingly happy, festive, joyous, pleasant, and delightful–Christmas.

And let us not forget the very personal — for you and me — reasons that Christ came…

1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
Isaiah 61:1-3 (NIV)