It’s Christmas Eve at the farm on Willow Road. Another crystal clear and cold night and we are all nestled around the fire after a day of visits with family and friends, two great meals (masterfully prepared by Jocelyn) and an evening service at St. Paul Church. My dad is starting to nod his head in fatigue as he finishes out his night’s reading, and I’m occasionally looking up with some amusement as Jocelyn discovers the joy and frustration of assembling an educational toy for our daughter. The education, apparently, is mostly for the parent and comes from just getting the product out of its packaging.

It’s been a great retreat so far from the pace and noise of the city. I’m always struck by the comparative silence that greets us when we arrive. The days here are quieter – especially in winter when most of the farm implements have been stowed for the season. But the nights are exquisitely so, the silence broken only by the occasional bay of a barking dog off in the distance. I’ll always try to talk Jocelyn into cracking open a bedroom window on the off chance that we hear the chilling cries of the coyotes that have made their way back into the township over the past few years.

I’ve come into this writing with two thoughts in my head. The first is how important it is to remember. I will forever look back on this Christmas as the holiday when I remembered how to breathe. A year ago, right around this time, we were weeks away from Julia’s open-heart surgery. If you’ve followed the story for that long, I had a countdown clock set for the minute we were to report to the surgical staff at Children’s Hospital. We were recording Julia’s food intake down to the milliliter and guarding against any possible infection for fear of its potentially devastating effect on her health. It was a major undertaking (and not a small risk) to even come out to the farm for a few days.

Now, as the ache in my back eases after standing at the back of the church holding a wiggly toddler for an hour, I am struck by how… normal… it all feels – and how long, long ago that whole ordeal seems. I get far more agitated at the fact that Julia is misbehaving in church than I can ever remember during her recovery from surgery. I guess that’s the mercy and the curse. It would be so easy to simply forget what we had gone through and the sustenance we received from God through so many. So tonight, I am going to remember – and say, “Thank you.”

I’ve also been reminded in the last week or so by how something beautiful and lasting and redeeming can come in such small packages and under the most adverse conditions. I am still amazed at God’s willingness to take us through a tomb of horrors in order to give us the “street cred” we need to speak into the lives of others and bring a level of encouragement that we couldn’t have before. Even more amazing is the posture we have when we are doing it well – not overbearing, but offered with the quiet humility of one whose self-image doesn’t rise or fall on the person taking the advice.

Jocelyn and I have had so many opportunities over the last year to encourage other families going through what we did. And it’s been awe inspiring to see their countenance change over the months from one of fear and uncertainty to the quiet knowing of a parent who has gone to the wall for their kid.

I’ve been reading the entire Bible over the last year with some friends and recently came upon a verse in an often-overlooked book of Hebrew scripture:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” ~ Micah 5:2

Some seven centuries before its realization, a promise was made that a backwater town (in the shadow of the capital of the religious establishment) was going to be the cradle of a new movement. It would start with a child born under circumstances that some would deem rustic and even scandalous, but its message of a love that was (and is) as overpowering as it is humble would silently weave its way through the ages.

Political and religious powers would try to appropriate its message for selfish gain, and would seem to succeed for a time. To their eventual frustration, though, Love has a life of its own and quietly demands to be met on its own terms: gratitude, selflessness, and service. The swords that people would take up to defend it are useless. The organizations raised to promote it will eventually crumble to dust. But Love will remain, beginning again in a willing heart that simply chooses it. And out of the smallest of packages, beauty continuously unfolds.

It is that Love we celebrate tonight. It is that Love that will not let me forget – even when the crush of life’s demands push in even harder. My prayer for you is that you bind yourself ever closer to the God of that love and let Him push back on the expectations laid before you; and for this time find the rest and comfort that Love so generously provides.

I give God thanks for all that you do, and wish you all the best for Christmas.