The truth is that I have always looked forward to Christmas, and it has a lot to do with my amazing grandmothers and mom doing everything they could to make it as magical as possible. I’m forever grateful for their loving hearts.

And while I am so incredibly grateful I have some amazing childhood Christmas memories, I also know that many people’s childhoods are not like this. On top of that, I am also just human. In short, I’ve grown up. Over the years I have experienced hurts, hangups, struggles, heartaches, and grief that come with the territory of being human. I’ve lost jobs, been low on cash, experienced breakups, and lost people. And that means that sometimes Christmas didn’t seem so… joyful. Or magical. Or even worth celebrating. Christmas just seemed like another day to get through.

So, what really changed my perspective on Christmas forever for the better?

Well, a few years ago before I started this blog, I came across a unique Christmas book in a used bookstore. By this point, I had been collecting Christmas books for years but hadn’t had a stitch of time to read them because I was in grad school. The idea for a Christmas blog had begun to germinate, yet all I had the time and money for was to occasionally purchase a Christmas book whenever I randomly came across one.

I purchased this particular Christmas book for $4. I didn’t think much about it until I started reading it a few weeks later. And when I finally picked it up, I was enthralled. This book was filled with beautiful stories about Christmas, true miracle stories that real people had experienced in life over the years. Some of the stories were childhood memories while others were of angelic encounters. Reading each true story made me rethink Christmas…

Could Christmas be a season of miracles? Can miracles REALLY happen anymore?

That year, I started praying and asking God for a miracle. I told God I wanted to experience or hear about a Christmas miracle, just like the people in the stories I was reading.

And I experienced two!

Christmas Miracle Story #1: Financial Provision

The first was from a close friend we’ll call Justin. He and his wife (we’ll call Anna) were financially struggling and about to lose their home. Every night they had prayed for relief but to no avail. They couldn’t even afford Christmas presents for their children. I was fervently praying for God to intervene … and one day He TRULY did!

One day Justin called me in a flurry of excitement. “You’ll never guess what happened,” he said. And I listened in awe as he told me about an incredible Christmas miracle.

Justin’s wife Anna had gone to work forlorn and dejected. Totally overwhelmed. Discouraged. Her coworker picked up on her mood and asked her what was wrong. Anna refused to say for a while, but after enough prodding she finally confessed the truth: her family was about to lose their apartment. And on top of that, they couldn’t even afford Christmas presents for their children.

“How much do you need for your rent?” the coworker asked. Anna told her the truth: they were $5000 behind on their rent. It was an enormous amount. But then the coworker looked at Anna and said something so astounding it shook Anna to her core: “I’ll pay it.” In disbelief, Anna replied, “You’ll what?” “I’ll pay it,” the coworker repeated. And she pulled out her checkbook and wrote Anna a check right there for $5,000. Talk about WOW – a real answer to prayer, a Christmas miracle!

After the coworker gave Anna the check, Anna’s coworker and her mother went out and bought Anna’s two boys dozens of Christmas gifts. She filled up Anna’s car to the brim, so many presents Anna couldn’t see out the back of her car! And the boys had an astounding sight beneath the tree come Christmas morning.

Turns out, over the years Anna had lent her coworker a kind listening ear. She had always listened, no matter the drama, no matter the heartbreak, and she had encouraged her wholeheartedly every day. Sincerely. Just because that’s the kind of person Anna was. And her coworker loved her dearly for it. And now she was paying her back. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, this woman had become a real-life angel for a Christmas miracle.

Turns out, God is still in the business of amazing Christmas miracles.

Allow me to tell you one more.

Christmas Miracle Story #2: Healing & Hope

That year, I kept praying about whether to visit family ten hours away or stay home for Christmas. I kept feeling we should just stay home in my spirit. So we did. Two days before Christmas we got a frightening phone call: my husband’s best friend had been in a car wreck and was in the hospital.

We went to the hospital immediately. Turns out, we were just about the only ones who showed up to the hospital because everyone else was traveling for Christmas. We soon discovered that our friend (we’ll call him Luke) had been in a car accident but had suffered no serious injuries. But once he’d gone home, he started having very bad symptoms. He rushed to the hospital where they had discovered he had a brain tumor – a terminal brain tumor. They told him there was no cure and he had only about a year to live.

Luke was understandably shaken. After suffering through so much cancer in his immediately family members, including his two children, this was not the story he needed. But looking into his frightened eyes in the hospital, I flat-out told him, “This is NOT the end of your story.” The doctors told us that his car accident “woke up” the tumor and that’s how he became aware of it at all. They would never have found the tumor without the car accident. He likely would have just died one night in his sleep, or it would have progressed even further. The car accident was Luke’s miracle #1.

Miracle #2 for Luke eventually came. Within a year, the “terminal” brain tumor had started to shrink, despite all doctors’ explanations and predictions. Luke is now fully back to work and in remission.

GOD IS GOOD. AMEN!

Experiencing these two miracles was a beautiful reminder that God hears our prayers, and that Christmastime can be a season for experiencing God’s miracles, just like the miracle of Jesus born to virgin Mary.

Let’s return once more to my Christmas book.

Miracle Story #3: Christmas Miracles from Across History

As it turns out, Christmas miracles have been happening all across history – especially since the beginning.

The book I picked up, “Christmas Miracles” by Brad & Sherry Steiger, gripped my imagination. A few nights a week I read some stories aloud to my husband. I even called my sister and read one to her…

One of the stories I read that stands out most took place in World War II. The story goes as follows…

“During the push to Berlin during the latter stages of World War II, Bryan Potter and a group of other bone-weary GIs were quartered in a brick farmhouse and told to get a good night’s rest…” As they all settled in for the evening, one of the GIs announced that it was Christmas Eve. His fellow men looked around at each other, startled. It certainly didn’t feel like Christmas, did it? In fact, they’d been so distracted by the literal battles they were facing daily, they’d forgotten about this important day.

One of the men began singing “Silent Night” and soon all the others joined in for a quiet moment of reverence. As the story goes, “Then, suddenly, someone carrying a bright light slammed open the kitchen door and shouted: ‘Everyone out! A mortal shell is about to hit!’”

The men scrambled out the door and threw themselves onto the snow-covered, frozen German ground, out in the open. “Seconds later, the demolished farmhouse erupted in a fiery explosion and began to rain pieces of brick down on them.” The Nazis had managed a direct hit on their Christmas Eve sanctuary.

The men hadn’t hesitated after the man with the bright light had entered the farmhouse. They hadn’t stopped to interrogate him and ask him how he had such specific knowledge. If they had, they would have surely died. Instead, they immediately reacted to their military training and ran out the door.

The men later found refuge in the ruins of a barn, sleeping on piles of straw near mangers and cattle pens. Before they fell asleep, the men discussed what exactly they had seen – who they had seen. Who was that man who ran in to warn them?

One man recounted, “After discussing it at great length, we all agreed that the man who burst into the farmhouse was not carrying a bright light, he was the bright light. When we compared our collective memories, we concluded that the stranger was surrounded by a brilliant kind of illumination. We were convinced that an angel saved our lives on Christmas Eve 1944 by warning us to get out of the farmhouse immediately before the mortar shell hit us” (story found on pages 47-50).

I have since thought often about those soldiers in enemy territory on Christmas Eve. I have thought about them singing “Silent Night” in a little farmhouse in war. And what their story teaches me is this: Christmas is more than Hallmark movies (as much as I love them), more than cookies and food, more than gifts and all the superficial stuff we can get caught up in sometimes.

Christmas began with a miracle, a 2,000 year old miracle in the birth of Christ. You can’t really say the word “Christmas” without saying the word “miracle”. I’m reminded that Christmas has been experienced by billions of humans for thousands of years, humans in horrible circumstances, in happy triumphs, in hospital rooms, and even in the trenches of World War II. Christmas is about experiencing the miraculous presence of God, together, no matter our circumstances. And today, God is still in the business of Christmas miracles.

What changed my perspective on Christmas forever? Christmas is about miracles. Firstly about encountering the miracle of the birth of Christ, and second about encountering God in our lives through our own miracles, today, together.

If you need a miracle this Christmas, boldly pray for one, and you never know the stories you’ll get to tell for generations to come of God’s faithfulness, which all began with the first miracle of Christmas.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon 
his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, 
The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
–Isaiah 9:6

P.S. I highly recommending purchasing a copy of “Christmas Miracles” and reading it without loved ones throughout the Christmas season! It will surely touch your heart and provide great fodder for family conversations around the fire or dinner table. You can find cheap copies on eBay or Abe Books.