Finally. The migraine I woke up with has subsided. I’m sitting on my bed, fan blowing a gentle breeze, listening to Martina McBride sing Christmas carols.

Yeah, I know its only August. I used to listen to Christmas music starting around April. But since mom and dad died I haven’t had the heart. It’s been too painful. So this feels like a giant leap forward. I actually wanted to listen to it tonight.

Christmas was always a special time when I was growing up. Mom made lots of candy, the fake tree (dad hated the mess and danger of real ones) went up and got decorated the day after Thanksgiving and didn’t come down till several days after New Years. Sometimes my oldest sister or my brother, or both, and their families would come and celebrate with us. Mom would always play Christmas carols at the piano and we would sing, each of us kids taking a part. I usually sang alto. Don’t know why — especially when, as a senior in high school I discovered I was actually a first soprano — I just love the sound of harmony. I love making harmony to someone else’s melody. It’s just no fun to me to sing the melody. Too easy and too generic.

Speaking of… One Christmas I remember with particular fondness was that year. My senior year in high school I was part of the Chamber Singers (our elite, madrigal group) as well as another elite group Girls Vocal Jazz. We as the Chamber Singers spent much of the holiday season singing at various functions and wowing every audience that heard us (we were so good that we had to compete at the college level so we wouldn’t sweep every high school level competition we entered — even at some of the college level ones we garnered top level awards). But my favorite part of the season were the evenings we went out caroling around some of our own neighborhoods, just for the heck of it, for the joy of singing. Awesome! I’d never had so much fun as that year.

I also remember the first time I went overseas. I visited some workers in Japan and China in mid-October 1996. I remember thinking, after being in China about a week, how Christmas would never be as cheerful or free-spirited for me, for I now had seen how much overseas workers sacrifice for Jesus and His Kingdom. How could I ever be so selfishly happy at Christmas knowing that so many were in foreign, often rural and poverty-stricken places unable to spend those beautiful holidays with family and friends, safe and warm by a fire, mantle hung with stockings.

Silly me. Years later I discovered that, even when things on the field (yes, I myself become one of the very missionaries I swore I could never be, because I could never bear the sacrifices they make) are blowing up in my face, I could still enjoy, be cheerful, even joyful throughout the Christmas holidays because I was with Jesus — the best Christmas present of all. One I’m still unwrapping.

The first Christmas without mom and dad, however, is probably one of the most painful and yet most fulfilling Christmases of my life. There was such grief and sorrow and such a hole in my heart. It was a daily battle to just survive; I think that’s when depression truly gripped me. It drug me into an abyss that I’m still trying to climb out of. But the relationship that grew between my sister, Nina, and I nourished my deeply thirsting soul, literally to the depths of my being. We grew so much during that time. And we grew so close. She means the world to me!

I don’t know what brought me to these Christmas moments tonight. I know there are some who may read this and think, "yikes! Don’t remind of all the shopping I’ve got to do and all the candy-making and decorating and hustle and bustle and…." I guess, for me, I’m realizing afresh what Christmas is about for me. I think it means different things to different people. For me, its about family. Not the mom-dad-sister-brother family – though those relationships are important. But those who act like family, who embrace me and whom I embrace as family would; those willing  to go to the deeper, darker places in my heart with me and those willing to expose their own hearts; those who purpose in their heart to know others and be known.

That’s why my Mosaic LA family is truly family and means so very much to me. They dug into those places and lived there with me. They didn’t "do life" with me, they were part of my life and made me part of theirs. Their hearts belonged to me and mine to them, in a way that cannot be explained, only experienced. How I miss them! What a wonderful gift from God they still are to me!

I think I may have found a community like my Mosaic LA family. I don’t know yet. It will take more time to feel that out and discover for certain. In the meantime, I will continue to unwrap my Greatest Christmas Present of all, wait for the leaves to fall and the air to chill and for the sweet aroma of Christmas to arrive.