Mick Silva Editing

Reading my Christmas post last year was enlightening. It's so sad! I apologize to anyone who read it. I sound like someone who desperately needs a new perspective.

This year, I found one. After 10 years in Colorado Springs and Christian publishing, the miracle happened and I was finally let go from WaterBrook a few months before my 5 year anniversary. Within weeks, our house sold, and we moved to Portland where I've been pursuing my fortunes as a consultant and freelance editor. And after being away for a few months now from that difficult town, which is also beautiful and fun and has many things we miss, especially our great friends, and the corporate traditional publishing world (which is valiant and filled with the most incredible and smartest people in the world), rather than loving the season for brief moments and savoring the fleeting reminders of childhood and love, I'm enjoying a far more sustained enjoyment, sharper and heightened.

But I don't think these are the biggest reasons.

No doubt it's much to do with this great book I was fortunate to help with recently. I'm also no longer the father of young children, which is both frightening and revelatory. This fact alone fills me to brimming with a wistful glee. I'll miss their younger selves someday. But now I'm too grateful not to be among the dozens of friends of mine with kids under 4, flinging their little socks into overnight bags and searching for two rested neurons to create a spark. With regular sleep this year, I don’t find it so hard not to say the evil thoughts I'm thinking; I’m not even thinking them to begin with. There isn't nearly so much that needs to be done, and the familiar struggle to appreciate the real reason for all the running around doesn't seem so hard. I'm hoping this also means I won't have to eat so much or excuse my lack of self-discipline. I may even get to write when we're back at my old house. 

This is crazy but the more I think about it, the more it seems to come down to regular sleep. With clearer thoughts, I no longer feel so old! There's a noticeably sharper sense of wonder to the songs and sermons, and I don’t miss the old electric blanket of food and wine to pull around me. My memories are returning–of beauty, love, hope–in my haze last year I feared I’d never recover them.

But I’m remembering. Being put back together. And what’s more, the girls' excitement seems all the greater. They're like little sprinklers of happiness. It’s their Christmas cheer that fills my cup this year. Christmas is for children and now I get to be one again! And maybe it is mostly because they aren’t quite so needy anymore. Who knew?

This year, I get to go back for a little while and remember it will all be okay. Somehow. All of it will be redeemed. The evil can not stand. With older kids I can see through the eyes I used to have again, the eyes that knew it was all right, that everything will be as it should be forever.

Is this how home is regained?

For all of you who have chaos at home right now, I know it doesn’t make sense when you can’t see it. I was there last year. There's too much that can cover it up. Such simple, ordinary things. Too much responsibility. But it will be put right again. Just know that it's not really up to you how things will go, and it’s so much better to accept your ignorant bliss. The frustrations hidden by a sovereign hand, the strings all under perfect control. The tremendous effort to pull off the celebrations can be forfeited. (And maybe it's when we don't that it starts to resemble anything but a celebration.)

Too often today, the ties of family, the significance of our being here at all, it can all go unnoticed. We turn blinded eyes to the very things that make seeing worthwhile. But don't be afraid of losing those children we were. Don't worry about stuffing in the trappings and wrappings to bring them back. They can't come back. And that's good. That's as it should be.

Instead, if we can let go those children, we can embrace the new ones better. When they're 5 and 6 and 7, you find these things in them you've been fighting to recover. It's as though it's the payback for your sacrifices–they do eventually bring back your joy at Christmas. And in their happiness is our escape. It's what Christmas is about, after all, a child bringing hope in the darkness to show us the way to wonder.

It felt so hard to see last year, like trying to guess if this gift was in one of the tightly wrapped boxes behind the tree. I wish I could have told myself last year to focus on giving instead–it may have been easier to find what I was looking for.

Of such as these is the very kingdom. And a child shall lead them…

So once again, come now little ones. Come into our broken-down world and re-member us. As we gather, put us back together, and may we see in your innocent eyes, those windows still so clean, the easy belief we used to know. For in your raised faces, bold and bright, we can see the great star shine through the dark.