Dear Lindsey,

Have you ever felt like a Christmas fraud? – fraught with emotions at war with one another: Pain, Sorrow, but forced Joy and Gratitude? Christmas songs seem to mock. Holing up in the basement without lights seems better than seeing shiny, happy people in the “city sidewalks” or Hallmark movies. Once, after a year like that for me, I wrote a “Christmas Update Letter” that was a little more real: When Pain Mocks the Song – Even in the Christmas Update Letter. Now every Christmas, I hear of someone else going through that kind of battle of emotions, (the newly widowed young mom, the woman whose daughter is on hospice, the separated couple feeling hopeless in trying to work it out) and I just want to share the letter again (below – with a few edits). However, since that original letter, my daughter Christine (then age 15) drew a picture which I prominently display on my mantle every Christmas. Her pen without words seems to perfectly capture what was in that manger: a beautiful Baby, a crown that caused pain and empty grave clothes, representing His victory. (Drawing below) Maybe I wasn’t a fraud after all, just one fully dependent on that little Baby and all that the manger held.

Life’s Railroad and the Train of Time

I used to think that there were years on mountains and years in valleys. Of course now I can see mountain hours, separated by valley hours, or even a joyful mountain moment in the midst of the depth of sorrowful valley moments. I like it best the way one author says: “Life is like a set of parallel train tracks, with joy and sorrow running inseparably side-by-side throughout our days.”

Yet, all the while, the train of time still carries us down the middle of the rails toward our destiny.

Often Christmas cards come (and I have written many!) with the updates – telling only the joys of the year – only one side of our “railroad track”: the “norm” of decking the halls with boughs of blessings – or is it boughs of bragging? But what if the past year doesn’t have much “happy” or the coming year seems to have an extreme weight of grief looming overhead?

Christmas is a time of joy – when we celebrate the birth of the Christ child. Yet I recall that the promise of joy AND sorrow met in the manger that first Christmas. The promise of redemption and eternal life rested in that baby, … yet the sin He would carry away was in the forecast. While He slept beneath the famous guiding star, His future of being mocked, scourged and publicly executed by crucifixion rested in that bed of hay. The miracles making the lame walk, the deaf hear and the blind see rested in that manger…as did the weeping over the loss of a friend, the anger needed to turn over tables and the prayers so strong to cause sweat as drops of blood. I suppose it’s the moments when sorrow’s side of our “railroad track of life” seems to be leading that make us truly recognize the value of its parallel Joy if we can see it.

Whether you have had a perfect year, or less-than-so, may you follow a star that leads you to the only “perfect” there is: Christ. Let us bring our gifts, our sorrows, our whole selves, because that is all He asks. May you make room in the inn of your heart in which He may reside forever. And may you know that the destiny at the end of the tracks is in His arms: the Peace that Passes Understanding.  The true JOY of Christmas is knowing that the destiny at the end of the tracks is HEAVEN. The no more crying heaven…The no more darkness heaven…The no more imperfect moments, days or years heaven. But alas, I cannot waste my days on earth – I want others to know!! And hence I write Letters so others will know the reason for my real JOY this Christmas and always!

Blessings to you and your family, Merry Christmas!   

Terri

2 Cor 4:5-6 For what we [should be telling in our Christmas update letter] is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord… For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

– His Word is the best Christmas update letter there is!!

“Behold! I bring you good tidings of great joy – for unto you is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord!”