Today is Christmas Eve and I am in India. That means that for the first time in twenty-three years, I won’t be sitting down at an elaborate table with my whole family for dinner this afternoon, I won’t sit next to my sister during the Christmas Eve service at church, and I will not quote It’s a Wonderful Life with the rest of my family tonight. I’m not going to wake up in the same room as my brothers and sister tomorrow morning and I won’t be on the stairs for the pictures that my mom takes every year and I won’t get to see my family open the gifts that I sent them from Nepal. Today is Christmas Eve, but it still doesn’t look like Christmas in India and certainly not like the ones I used to know.
But what has God taught me on this Race, if not to celebrate and to celebrate well? This Christmas looks wildly different than any other before it, but that’s pretty obvious to everybody. These changes are hard, but they are good — because they come from the will of God. This is where He has me this year, and so this is where I will be… I will be present in this place and with the people who God has brought into my life. I miss home, today more than ever before, but I am content to be where I am.
The people on A-Squad are a family now and like my family at home, we get to have our own holiday traditions. So even though our Christmas tree is only waist-high and the only fireplace we have is an app on my Macbook Air, we are going to celebrate Christmas well. Please join us in that and enjoy our video that the amazing Stephanie May put together — Merry Christmas from all of us here in Bangalore!
I hope that your holiday is filled with worship, time with your family, Nativity scenes [thank you for sneaking one into my pack, Mama], pretty wrapping paper, seasonal Starbucks drinks, and music. I love you and I miss you and I hope that this Christmas is the best one you’ve ever had… I know that mine will be!
