"The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?"

The Pandora Christmas station is playing. Martin is out picking up Bella from school and Abeni from a friend’s home. On the fridge is Bella’s Christmas countdown. 11 days to go.

I wish I felt “festive”.

I wish I felt filled to the brim with “Christmas Cheer”.

I wish I could sing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

and mean it.

This has been one of the toughest few months for me in a very, very long time.

For one, Bella came very, very close to rejecting her daddy’s kidney that was transplanted in 2005.

Second, I lost a dear friend to cancer.

Third, I sliced right through the tendon in my right pinkie finger and have been in some pretty intense pain.

Fourth, we have to foreclose on our lovely home.

And there is other stuff. It seems that so many people in my life are in very, very difficult times as well.

How I wish I could tell you that I am doing sooo awesome. But I can’t.

Can any of you relate?

The thing is – I learned quite a while back that there is freedom in not being enslaved to circumstances.

There is freedom in not always trying to control my world in order to achieve maximum happiness. Or security. Or stability.

That is where my Faith come in.

Is it a crutch? You bet it is. It has kept me from falling flat on my face (or other regions) more times than I can count.

My faith, as has already been tried and tested, allows me to look ahead with Hope.

My faith allows me to just feel like crap sometimes in the midst of it all.

And my faith is the stuff from which Christmas is made of.

I am going to try and hold on tight to that.