Acts 3:8

South Dakota was a long way from our Virginia home and there was a lonely coziness that belongs exclusively to nighttime in the West. We walked in the park and by the lake; then back to the house to work a jigsaw puzzle. That was forty-eight years ago; yet it was almost yesterday.

I wonder if Mary had ever been to Bethlehem before that first Christmas. Did she think about Ruth and Boaz, or the birthplace of a shepherd boy named David? What did they think as they rested near lowing cattle as stars looked down from the sky while the little Lord Jesus was asleep on the hay?

Luke wrote that Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. Advent is about looking forward to what the Lord is doing next, but it is first remembering where we have walked with God. There are a lot of things that need to be forgettable in this life; and there are others that are for keeping and pondering.

How can we forget the people we have shared our life with, and where we have been together? This time of the year usually brings the ghost of Christmas past to visit for a while. I have found him a friend: we laugh and we cry.

Christmas memories still bring our little children running to the tree. We go back to the different churches and think of cantatas, children’s plays, parties and communion. It is late in the night on December 24th as Pat and I have always looked at a room of sacrifice and love around a decorated tree; and we say, “Another miracle; Merry Christmas.”