‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the world

People groped their way blindly in the dark, searching for the smallest hint of light.

People walked around with gaping holes in their souls that they tried to fill with careers, pleasures, sex, money, fame, and all sorts of little trinket gods that promised big but never delivered.

People lived in bondage to fear and doubt, looking to spouses or significant others or children to be their saviors, looking to medicate in any way those terrible feelings away.

People had no hope, no future, no name, and no chance at anything better.

People’s lives were filled with the debris of broken relationships, broken hearts, broken lives, broken dreams, broken psyches, broken promises and only memories of what it meant to be whole and healthy.

Death was the final horror, something to be avoided at any price, and its shadow cast pallor over even the brightest and best moments of life.

People were cut off and alienated from God, not only strangers but enemies to the One who made them, and there didn’t appear to be any remote possibility of reconciliation.

But then one December night long, long ago, a star shone brightly in the night sky over a lowly stable where the impossible became possible and everything changed . . .