Somewhere about seventeen or eighteen years ago, my wife and I sat in our small apartment. Like many other young Mormon couples our age, we were in school. We had small children, bills, laundry, and not much else.
Things were difficult, and getting worse. Finances were tight. Although we believed in what we were doing, we both felt burdened by our responsibilities and the pressures attendant in what we were doing, especially the sacrifices our young -but-quickly-growing family demanded of us both. In addition to, and because of, all these thing (and some others I won't go into) the marriage was under a lot of stress. Sometimes trials are like the ache that comes after a good rigorous work-out. Other times, it's like the pain that comes when a joint isn't working properly and injury is imminent. This was quickly closing in on the latter example.
Looking back, I suppose we were not exactly in a crisis, but we were getting close. I don't think we knew that, though. It just felt like things were difficult. I think the fact that I say we weren't completely in crisis is largely because the story ended happily. Had it not, this moment would likely have been where that unhappy ending became obvious.
I remember how empty it felt to put up our meagre Christmas decorations that year: a small table-top tree I'd bought as a teenager, and a bottle of potpourri with Christmas lights wrapped inside that my wife's visiting teacher had made.
It is a bit painful to type this, because I still remember the heaviness, the bleakness, and the other things: frustration, hurt, guilt, resentment. On and on.
When we finished, we sat not very close to each other on our hand-me-down couches and turned out the lights, so the room was lit only by the lights on the tree and in the potpourri bottle. Then I put in one of my most treasured possessions: a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas tape.
The Christmas lights softened the room and made our cinderblock apartment seem more beautiful and inviting. Reality didn't exactly change, but it seemed more palatable, more enjoyable and less stark somehow.
If the lights softened the room, the music softened our hearts, a little. The songs brought back happy memories of Christmases past, of easier times, and happier days. The softness wasn't all pleasant, though. Some of those memories were also painful. Our engagement had happened in November and our marriage in February, so Christmas was a big chunk of that time. Remembering the excitement and promise of those days made the bleakness and disappointment of the current situation all the more painful.
But we kept listening, just sitting there on the couch in the softness.
At some point, we danced. I'm not sure how it started. Dancing isn't an activity we do often or naturally, certainly not spontaneously. But somehow, for some reason, we started dancing. I held her and she held me and we swayed, our movements animated by songs about the birth of Jesus. It was probably the first time in a while that we were on the same page about anything, the first time where were were together, in synch and in harmony.
Something happened that night. The dancing didn't solve our problems. But it helped open us to each other again, helped us move together again--truly together, not just the shared pain of slogging through a rough patch.
That was the first miracle.
We decided that no matter how busy we got, we'd try to spend a few minutes each night during the Christmas season sitting on the couch, looking at lights and listening to music.
We kept to that commitment, and it saw us through. One night, I was alone. I'm not sure if my wife had gone to bed, or was just occupied at the moment. But I remember looking at the lights in the potpourri jar and hearing a song. I want to say it was "O Holy Night," but I'm not sure. At any rate, for whatever reason, at that moment, it hit me: the whole point of Christmas was so a Savior could be born. A Redeemer who could repair broken things, and heal what was sick. He could even bring back things that were dead, past all other help.
That was the second miracle.
I knew all of that before, but it really hit me then. Really hit me. I felt it in a way I had never experienced. The promise of redemption suddenly seemed a deeply personal and precious thing: my personal redemption as well as the redemption of my marriage.
Things didn't get better overnight, or even over years. Life still had some curve-balls to throw at us, and we certainly had a few to throw at each other.
But tonight, I'm sitting here with my wife. We're looking at our Christmas tree. I have a Christmas mix shuffling through iTunes. And that song just came on.
Our living room is still modest, but it's in a house we own, and the fact that the house is small simply means that every inch of every wall and piece of floor has been baptized by laughter and tears and memories.
We're sitting on a lovely, comfortable couch that is only a year old. They were Christmas presents last year. Our first new couches ever, and we still love them.
The tree is larger now, and the room is also lit by other lights from treasured decorations we've accumulated over the years. We just got home from a work very satisfying work event, which reminded us how blessed we are, and how useful that education has proven to be.
To be honest, we don't have a lot by some standards. But our lives are happy and feel abundant. It doesn't seem like we could go under at any minute. Our family has grown and matured. We still have young children in bed, but the three babies in this story are now away at college, returned from missions, and possibly on the brink of starting their own families soon.
Our marriage isn't perfect. But we're to the point where the happiness far outweighs the struggle, where the joys far outnumber the tears and stress, and we don't have to try so hard for it to work well.
In other words, our marriage isn't perfect, but I believe it was redeemed. And I believe that promise is active and continuing and available to every one of us in every aspect of our lives.
To me, that is the miracle of Christmas: redemption and renewal. Every year, it hits me again--fresh and wonderful. And once more, I stand all amazed.
