Family Feud

My twin circles around me and approaches my daughter about the following holiday plans:

"Dear Kelly,
Thanks for the update. I'm trying hard to resolve a lot of different
schedules right now for Christmas Eve, but sincerely hope you and Gordon and Dave can make it. Your mom insists on going to church that night, which is presenting some big problems for the dinner. Linnell doesn't know if the dinner can be served that early, (6:00 pm), and today I found out that Grandpa and Marthe' can't make it for dinner, if it is that early. So, we'll likely have dinner at around 7-7:30 pm, so that they can be there, along with Linnell's parents.

If you are able to make it to Kalamazoo for Christmas, maybe we can both talk to your mom about the need to be somewhat flexible regarding the church service? Christmas is about Christ, but we can celebrate as a family so infrequently that it sure seems to me that on those occasions we could all be flexible to insure we'll be together."

Oh, Bill.

I love our family, I truly do. I wish that my desire to go to church wasn't mucking up all your Christmas Eve plans. I wish that you had talked to me directly instead of trying to circle around behind me and approaching me through my daughter. I must seem like some religious nut to you all, with my passion to be in church on Christmas Eve. Believe me, I want so much to be all together for awhile on Christmas Eve, and don't mind at all if we must leave before dinner, but you already told me how unacceptable you find that compromise.

What you haven't realized is that Kelly wants to be in church that evening as well, and Carman says he wants to be there more than anywhere else. You know I spent a lot of years out of church, but in those years I lived a more watered-down faith, and not that one that is so soaked in Christ as it is now, as it has been in great part because of the church I am a part of.

Yes, I could celebrate the birth of Christ with my own children later on that evening and not cause such divisiveness in our family, but the thought of it makes my heart feel so heavy. This place I go to has become so much more than a building I enter into on Sunday mornings. It has become a sacred place where I encounter God through teaching, worship and the people there. It is my family, just as all of you are my family. I am related by blood to this family, too. It's hard to explain how extraordinary it feels to me to be a part of a family that loves and desires God so passionately, a family that shows me Christ so often through their love, their generosity, their service to others.

If, God willing, all my children are with me this Christmas Eve, I want no other gift than to have them all with me at church that night, having the rare privilege of introducing my children to my other family, and most importantly, celebrating the birthday of the One who has become my passion, my heart, my all, my life.

I wish more than anything you could be where I am. Then you would understand.