Silent Night

This has been a year of many truly awful things.

 

A year so challenging and bleak that even on the most celebrated of holidays I look to the past. My memories reach back to times when life seemed simpler. To what stands out the most in my Christmases past memories.

 

And I come across a simple white candle with a round paper base trim to catch its drippings.

 

And a song.

 

Not sung in perfect harmony.

 

Nor perfect by any means.

 

But in my memory it’s the most beautiful song of all.

 

Silent Night.

 

I remember the cold winter nights, shuffling through the snow, trying not to slip or fall down a steep driveway on the short walk to Grace Church for the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.

 

So many candles, so many years ago.

 

I remember, as a child, not the excitement of Christmas morning, the smells of the fresh baked homemade pies streaming down into my room awakening me to the sounds and joys of the season, but I keep thinking about standing in front of a wooden church pew holding a little white candle. Church lights off. Everyone singing Silent Night.

 

My mom’s little girl singing voice and that feeling of being one.

 

Being one with so many in understanding the gift that is Christ our Lord born this celebrated night.

 

The shepherds who walked through shifting sands and dunes. Guided by a star. Looking for a baby lying in a manager.

 

I remember those services. I remember the Schwab family.

 

Reverend Gerald Schwab delivering a string of memorable services so many Christmas Eves now passed.

 

I remember those nights and I look tonight and at this early Christmas morning and I am profoundly grateful, that in a year, a year with so much to be afraid of, I wasn’t afraid.

 

That in a year with so much to be angry about, I am not angry.

 

In a year with so many sick, dying and lost, I am not lost.

 

In a year when I am forced into a far greater solitude than I have ever faced before, I am not alone.

 

I am grateful, for holding those little white candles with the paper base. Singing silent night in a darkened church. Walking that walk home trying not to let that candle go out.

 

I am so profoundly grateful that I can still hear the echoes of those sermons, of those nights and of that feeling, that hope, that joy and that love are all possible through the birth of a savior who truly gives us hope when all hope should be lost and that loves unconditionally.

 

The memories of tight hugs and hand squeezes from my mom and dad at the end of a prayer before the lighting of the Christmas Candle.

 

Now something so simple as a touch seems like it was so many years ago.

 

I hope this Christmas anyone who reads this has the HOPE of LIFE in them.

 

That even though we are challenged, no matter what we are facing, we are SAVED and HEALED no matter which way the pendulum swings.

 

Earlier this year a young mother passed away. Her friends around her, her fight on this earth was done. Melinda Runcie said "She's healed now."

 

She was saved. She was healed. And those words are what I take with me and embody now.

 

No matter the outcome whether we walk and continue to walk across that shifting snowy sidewalk of life’s imperfections, trying not to slip on the steepest of icy and snowy driveways, we can still sit in that wooden pew of life, holding a small candle, feeling the warmth and love around us as we are passed a chance to hold a small spark with shimmering reflections cast upon those around us from the light of the world in front of us as we truly sing and embrace those words, on a truly Silent Night

Done