It’s Christmas Eve for the Cook family; and despite feeling behind the curve on just about everything for the past six weeks, all the preparations have led us to the familiar comfort of my sister’s home in Washington D.C. After the long drive through dicey weather, we are warm and safe as the winter weather rages. The heavy rain we arrived to was swept away by a cold front, turning the rain briefly to snow and clearing the skies. This morning, we woke to below-zero wind chills – a local rarity.

We’re sitting in that wonderful space of quiet between preparation and execution. The last gift is wrapped, the last run to the grocery store is complete and it is not yet time to start the meal. We are safely nestled in from the cold in comfy clothes that are still dressy enough to receive impromptu visitors from the neighborhood. I’m on an enclosed and sun drenched porch with a cup of re-heated coffee and a couple of Jocelyn’s marvelous cookies.

And in the quiet, I have the opportunity to stop in the season of gratitude and giving to actually receive and be grateful – and there’s a lot to be grateful for. We’ve navigated the transients of Julia’s entry into Middle School with the help of a supportive staff; and in that transition, an event that is still teaching me things weeks later.

If you follow our family on the social networks, you might have seen that Julia was a part of the Derby Middle School Girls Basketball team. Most of it was about keeping her physically active and keeping her connected in the life of her new school.

Most of the practices were spent with her “special coach” as the other girls went through the more standard drills. Mrs. Guise helped with the basics of the game, kept her engaged and encouraged us with her infectious optimism.

Julia spent her games on the bench, cheering and participating as she was able. Most often, a snack, some one-on-time with Mrs. Guise and a chance to connect with friends on the sideline was her primary motivator; but there were moments at halftime where she’d go out and shoot free throws to the delight of the crowd with her trademark “between the legs” wind-up.

Nonetheless, a very tough season for the team ended in a real triumph for Julia on the court during regulation play. The girls were getting destroyed in detail on their home court by the crosstown rivals. But minutes before the game started, I heard what seemed like the impossible from Coach Kelly:

“I’m putting Julia in for the last two minutes of the game. It’s all arranged with the other coach.”

What followed was one of the highlights of the year for our family – and our community. I took a little time to string some of my images along with the video taken by the Athletics Director behind the bench.

Take a minute and give it a look…

Julia got the team’s only basket in the last seconds of the game and got comments and cheers for days after the video was shared. In the sometimes lonely moments as a parent of a differently-abled kid, it was a marvelous reminder that this girl has an impact and there are a whole lot of people rooting for her.

I could have written on the experience sooner, but circumstances always made me wait. I think I needed to let it marinate and see what was to be done with it. As I thought about that wondrous moment in the weeks following, I began to ponder a couple of questions:

Why does a moment like this resonate the way it does? How is it that every heart in the room was right with our girl as she made that shot?

In the end, it was more than just the opportunity she had to participate with her team. Here are a few observations on how it unfolded to impact the hearts of so many:

~ Julia came from the “outside” to be a part of an experience that had often been restricted to those of more typical ability.

~ There was a choice to be made – see her as an inconvenience to be sidelined or embrace the vulnerability required to include her and perhaps be surprised by the possibility of a more redemptive outcome.

~ All of the conventional rules of play were swept aside and a space was opened to her. Time was slowed and even stopped (thank you, scorekeeper). Even opponents became co-conspirators in something much larger as Julia stepped to the line.

~ That moment of communal vulnerability found its fulfillment in a small, but critical victory.

~ And everyone – players, coaches and spectators from both sides – walked away united and were better people for the experience.

The win was real and everybody knew it. And we also knew it had nothing to do with the final score or even the team’s record. Something much greater had been won – a piece of our humanity.

One teammate’s mom later put it this way:

“Honestly, every moment of this occasionally painful basketball season was worth it to get to this. I started crying in the stands watching all the girls run out. Go Dragons and Go Julia!”

– Alicia C.

In the end, because of that moment, a winless season… was a win.

Weeks later, as the world cheered their favorite teams in the World Cup and Argentina was shut down in celebration of its triumph of high achievement, I still marveled at the power of moments like these. 26 Argentinian players ignited the hearts of over 47 million in their country and perhaps billions globally.

Why? It is the longing of our hearts to be a part of something larger than ourselves. We need something to take us – even for a moment – out of banal routine to remind us that there is a greater story of which we are a part.

But that is a deeply perplexing aim, if we’re honest. Especially if we are looking for something in this world that truly fills that space in our hearts. The pageantry and excitement we experience in most things have a darker side as well.

I won’t spend too much time building this particular point of my case here. A cursory Google search will get you to some depressing stories. They pull back the curtain on the way the World Cup really happens. For all of its compelling stories (congratulations, Morocco), the underlying reality of commercialization, global politics and outright exploitation can feel pretty ugly.

No – our hearts long for the purity of a “real” experience where no one profits, yet everybody wins.

Don’t believe me? Get in a quiet spot, take another look at Julia’s video, then look at Gonzalo Montiel’s championship winning penalty kick and experience the difference. I will lay odds that the deeper chambers of your heart were accessed by a bunch of middle school girls giving a differently-abled teammate a shot at making a play.

That longing ultimately finds its home in this often misunderstood season we find ourselves in. I’m sometimes embarrassed to realize I’m yet again on the treadmill of preparing, shopping, buying and decorating and too quickly forget what it’s all for. In the insightful words of early 20th century writer G. K. Chesterton:

“The worst element in the case of Christmas is that Big Business, which stands for everything that is arrogant and ruthless and ugly, has done its best to exploit Christmas, which stands for everything that is humble and compassionate and beautiful.”

In my quieter moments, though, my heart is reminded of the otherworldly Love and Hope that nudges us toward ever greater kindness and healing. To borrow the words of theologian Dallas Willard, a “Divine Conspiracy” entered our history in a backwater province of the Roman Empire that still pursues us, 2000 years later…

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.“

– The Gospel of John 1:9-13 (emphasis mine)

Something amazing is recorded and promised in these ancient words – as scandalous to earthly power and authority in the present as they were two millennia prior. And if we have the courage to still our hearts and push past the often self-imposed trappings of seasonal opulence, Love clearly speaks with an invitation to a weary world…

You, who feel hopeless, marginalized, misunderstood, disenfranchised, weak or just plain different.

I, who made you with care and intention, have come in vulnerability, that I might be with you.

Your intrinsic value has nothing to do with your family, your story or your circumstances.

It has nothing to do with what others think of you – or even what you think of yourself.

Yield to the love that created you and delights in you.

You belong – and always have.

Trust that.

Trust me.

We all feel “on the outside” at one time or another. I struggle with it regularly. I ache when I see it played out in the life of my daughter.

But the extraordinary hope is this: The economic and utilitarian “rules of the game” that enslave and marginalize us have been swept aside by the creative love of our Creator. That Love relinquished any sense of divine decorum and came to us in our confusion and pain.

And things will never be the same.

There is more – so much more – to the adventure as we embrace that ultimate reality. Let this season and its original design nudge aside our distraction and fulfill the longing that dwells in us all. A longing that is revealed and fulfilled in simple acts of sacrificial kindness every day.

Merry Christmas, friends.