Our family's celebration of Christ's birth yesterday was painful at times, yet it became one of the most spiritually-significant days we have ever experienced. I began the morning feeling so torn up inside (because of recent devastating problems in our extended family) that Terri found me doubled over on the floor. "I don't want to ruin this day for the kids," I cried. With Terri's help, I regained my composure and began to set my mind toward the formidable task of Christmas preparations for our family of 12.

My heart's desire had been that I could communicate the essence of Christmas to our children. God answered my prayer, but often in unexpected, extremely challenging ways.

As we began the day around the breakfast table, I asked the children "what would Jesus do about Christmas?" Andrew said Jesus didn't celebrate Christmas, and I agreed, pointing out that in Christ's day only the heathen (such as Herod) apparently celebrated anyone's birthdays.

The Lord had led me to read Luke 14 with the family, because I sensed that this scripture reveals how Jesus would celebrate Christmas if He walked on the earth today. Jesus said

"When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just." (Luke 14:12-14)

"So how would Jesus celebrate Christmas today?" I asked.

"Probably by serving people at a homeless shelter," Andrew answered.

Because of my strong conviction that most doctrinal errors result from a failure to read scripture in context, I knew that I must read past verse 14. In verses 16-24 Jesus tells a parable about a man who held a great banquet, but the invited guests refused to come, offering various excuses. So the host ordered that poor and disabled people be brought in to fill the banquet hall, and he ordered his servants to go out into the streets to "compel" people to come in.

Matthew pointed out that the banquet Jesus spoke of in this parable is heaven. Many people who seem to be important in this world foolishly make excuses to justify their refusal to accept Christ's invitation, but the poor have open hearts to receive what Jesus has prepared for them. As God's servants, we are to aggressively "compel" people to receive his gifts (as we often do when we are standing on the sidewalks outside the abortion chamber, seeking to help people to accept God's precious gift of a child).

Continuing into verse 26, I sensed that this passage was a special word from God to help us understand the pain of this day. Jesus said that we cannot be his disciple unless we "hate" our family members.

"Did Jesus hate his mother?" I asked the children. They immediately recognized the fact that Jesus had a loving relationship with his mother. But Andrew pointed out that one time Jesus' mother and brothers asked to speak to Him, and Jesus (who was involved in a time of ministering to a crowd), rather than responding to His mother and brothers, pointed to his disciples and said "here are my mother and my brothers." Jesus' family was so offended by his behavior that they began to wonder if He was crazy.

But Jesus said that a disciple must not only "hate" his family, but he must even hate his own life. As Jesus pointed out various other times, we experience true fulfillment in life when we sacrifice our life for God. We must love God so much that our concern for our families and our concern for our own life looks like hatred in comparison.

Andrew mentioned the fact that when someone who is from a Jewish family accepted Christ, he knew that he would be alienated from his family. I added that Moslems would rather have their child die than to accept Christ.

My commitment to Christ and His Word has caused me to take actions this Christmas which may look like "hatred" to some members of my extended family. I broke down in tears as I explained to the children that we love Jesus so much that we are willing to someday take actions toward them that they may perceive as hatred. If our children fall, we will continue to stand for the truth, even if our stand alienates our children. And I told the children that I hope that they will continue to stand for the truth, even if I fall. Even if their love for Christ someday leads them

Do I love Christ enough to face pain in my family because of the fact that I am His disciple?

to take actions which appear to me to indicate that they hate their father.

These are strong, painful words, especially during this time in our family. But do I love Christ enough to face pain in my family because of the fact that I am His disciple?

After breakfast, Terri and I spent several hours preparing the turkey and other dishes for Christmas dinner. As Terri was working in the kitchen, Christian called out from the dining room "Mama, what's two plus two?"

Terri replied, "if you have two pieces of candy and I give you two more pieces of candy, how many pieces of candy do you have?"

"Four," Christian replied.

Then, after about a twenty second pause, Christian asked "Mama, what's two plus two?"

I had to smile at the fact that Christian just didn't "get it." (Like I suppose God often smiles at me when I just don't "get it.")

After helping Terri with the meal for a few hours, I turned my attention toward preparing the presents for the children. (Yes, I know, we should have done this the night before, but under the circumstances this was the best we could do.)

As darkness approached, the snow began to fall. Soon our surroundings were covered with several inches of snow.

The turkey was out of the oven, and almost all of the menu items were ready. Terri just needed to heat up the yams and cook the pies.

Then the lights flickered. The house went dark. We had lost power.

Candles were positioned all around the house. When Terri could see that the power may not be coming back on for a while, she realized that she would be serving Christmas dinner by candlelight (and that she would need to forget about the pies and yams).

The turkey was tasty and juicy, and the entire meal was delicious. I don't think we even missed the yams.

Toward the end of the meal, with candles burning all around, I asked the children "how are these candles like Christmas?"

After a few puzzled responses, Joseph finally spoke up. "Jesus is the light!"

I told the children that the Bible tells us that Jesus was like a light coming into a dark world. "If someone is sitting in a dark room and we come in and turn on the light, will they be happy?" I asked. Yes, the children responded, the person who had been in the dark room would be happy.

But the Bible tells us that some men are upset when the light shines in the darkness. I asked the children why someone wouldn't want the light turned on in a dark room. "Because they are doing something bad," the children replied.

"This is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19)

Then I asked the children "how are these candles like us?" Matthew said "we are lights for Jesus!"

I explained that Jesus said that we are the light of the world. Just as Jesus shines light on this dark world, He wants us to do the same. And when we shine Jesus' light, we know that many people will be upset with us; they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.

I picked up one of the candles and put it under the table, and the children could seek how the room became a little bit darker. Then I raised the candle above my head, and the room became a little brighter. "Jesus told us that we should shine our light like a city on a hill," I said.

"If we were burning all of these candles in a room which was already light, would we notice them?" I asked. "No, our lights shine best when they shine in the darkness. So if we are just shining our lights around other Christians, we're not doing what Jesus said.

We need to shine our lights in places of darkness.

We need to shine our lights in places of darkness, not just in places that are already light."

"How do we shine our light?" I asked.

"Tell people about Jesus," several children responded.

"But how did Jesus say that we shine our light?" I asked.

Andrew responded "by doing good works."

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16)

"How do we glorify God?" I asked. We had discussed this as a family before, and I had explained that

Glorifying God is like shining a spotlight on Him.

glorifying God is like shining a spotlight on Him. If we shine a spotlight in a room that is already light, nobody may notice what the light is shining on. But when we shine the spotlight in the darkness, everybody can see who is in the light.

Micah said "let's sing 'The Magic of Christmas.'" I thought that would be a great idea, especially because of the way that the opening words of the song relate to our discussion regarding shining Jesus' light in the darkness:

In the days of man's darkness, God said He'd send a savior. For centuries man was waiting for the light....

As we sat there in the candlelight, the children sang beautifully (I wish we could have recorded it to share with you).

After dinner I went back to the task of preparing the gifts for the children. Wrapping presents for ten children by the light of a flashlight was certainly a challenge! The children were very patient, though occasionally one of them would ask "are we going to have any presents?" (For a while there I was beginning to wonder about that too.)

We have tried to nurture an attitude of contentment with our children throughout the years, hoping that they don't become materialistic and greedy. But it seems like the more time goes by, the more our children struggle to be patient (and so do we).

As the final presents were wrapped, I tried to determine how we would handle the distribution of presents in the dark. "This should be an interesting memory," I thought, as I pictured each of the children trying to find his or her presents by the light of a flashlight. Just then, the power came back on.

By now it was almost 10 pm, and we were all tired. A couple of the children had already fallen asleep. Nevertheless, they had waited all day for their presents, so we didn't want to disappoint them. They all received their presents with delight, without a word of complaint regarding the delay.

With the power restored, the pies could finish cooking. After all of the presents were opened, we went back to the dining room for dessert. By the time everyone finished their dessert, it was midnight. Christmas was over. But I have a feeling that the memories of this Christmas will live on for decades.

It was not the perfect Christmas. Not by far. It fell far short of the type of celebration Jesus advocated. But I for one will probably never forget this experience of the reality of this Christmas love shining on us and through us, into our hurting hearts, and into a dark, rebellious world.

In the morning we awoke to a bright, beautiful world. Crystals of snow sparkled on every twig of every tree. White pillows covered every inch of the ground. Where our yard had been cluttered and ugly, now it was glorious. The scene reminded Terri of God's love, gently covering all of our chaos, making something spectacularly beautiful.

May we experience His beautiful glory in our pain throughout the coming year.

Tim Palmquist