The Queen’s Christmas Message

Not Elizabeth’s but I like mine too....

For nearly every Christmas of my life, my mom would spend at least some of the time crying. In my younger years, I didn’t get it. As time went on, I understood a little more. I don’t know now if she’d be pleased or saddened to know that I get it. You’d think that years later, things wouldn’t make my eyes leak as much.

But that’s the beauty of a broken heart. When you have your heart broken again and again and again, something remarkable can happen. It has a way of breaking off the crusty exterior, so that as it heals it grows — and gets stronger. The old enclosure doesn’t fit anymore. I always hope that my heartbreak has made my heart sweeter, more tender and loving, more open. I don’t want a calloused-over heart but one that knows only two things: how to keep beating and how to keep loving.

I think a lot about this when I think of the tender babe in the feeding trough — the enfleshment of Love itself, so helpless and in need of care, and yet so powerful that time itself is measured by the presence. His love is immeasurable, far-reaching, unconditional, and immortal. This is how I try to model my life. Do I always succeed? Not by a long shot. But I will always keep growing and trying to emulate the love that brought him to earth, to live among us, as one of us, and so selfless that he literally emptied himself for us all.

May your holidays — whichever you celebrate — be filled with love of that ilk, love that’s immeasurable, far-reaching, unconditional, and immortal. May it saturate every cell, every fiber of your life, and in turn, may that love quench our arid world longing for living water.

Happiest of celebrations to you all!