It seems that it was every Christmas Eve, we would all climb into cars and drive to church for the service that started at 11:00 p.m.. The sanctuary would be crowded with so many people all holding unlit candles. There would be the reading of the Gospel, carols, and a few other poems and excerpts from essays. But Christmas arrived for my mother when these words were read as it seemed they were every year.

For so the children come and so they have been coming.
Always the same way they come, born of the seed of a man and a woman.
No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
No wise men see a star to show where to find the babe that will save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Sitting beside our children’s cribs, we feel glory in the sight of new life beginning.
We ask “Where and how will this new life end? Or will it ever end?”
Each night a child is born is a holy night.
A time for singing, a time for wondering, a time for worshiping.

Sophia Lyon Fahs

May your celebration — whatever it is — be bright with the hope that comes from fresh life and the promise that it brings to the world.

#31daysofhope