Originally from December 2010

My dad was first diagnosed with cancer in the early nineties.  Although dad was in remission at the time, in the fall of 1994 the board of firefighters recommended an early retirement from his career as a firefighter.  He had survived the deadly battle of cancer, but his body was no longer able to fight fires.  Early retirement presented a huge financial burden for my parents.  Mom was a stay-at-home mom and dad was now retired with a pension half his normal salary.  Money would be tight and Christmas was just around the corner.

But money was not my parents only concern that weekday afternoon.  Dad’s cancer was back.  My parents were crushed.  Dread filled their hearts as they neared our family home in Shoreline.  They would have to tell my brother and me that cancer had returned.  And this time the prognosis wasn’t positive.  To make matters worse, mom and dad didn’t have the money to provide for Christmas the way our family was used to celebrating.  Not that Christmas was about the presents, but mom’s heart broke with the thought of the financial pressure they faced at this time of the year.  The Lord’s birth was always the central focus of Christmas in our family, but how could she ignore the festivities of this special holiday when this could very well be dad’s last Christmas?

Like many family homes, ours had two main entrances, the front door for visitors and a side door adjoining the driveway for close friends, neighbors and family.  Earlier that afternoon, my brother Scott and I returned home from school to find an envelope taped behind the screen of our side door.  Certain this was a note from my youth group’s Secret Santa, I ripped the envelope open.  What I found inside was a typed note attached to a bundle of bills.  Knowing this was clearly not for me, but a blessing for my family, Scott and I shoved the money back in the little envelope and anxiously awaited the return of our parents.

Knowing nothing of this financial blessing, dread seeped into my parents’ hearts as they neared our home.  But something caught the corner of their eyes as they slowly turned down our steep driveway to the little house in Shoreline.  We had a large picture window in the front of our home.  And to their surprise, my parents could plainly see Scott and me jumping and dancing around the living room like wild hooligans.  Teenagers at the time, Scott and I were not prone to such displays of emotion or excitement.  Mom and dad knew something was up.

As soon as we saw their little Geo pull up, Scott and I dashed to meet them.  We threw our arms around our parents, laughing and crying, oblivious to the news we would ultimately hear.  When we finally let go of them, with tears streaming down our bright eyes, we presented our findings.  Slowly, mom and dad opened the envelope to discover ten crisp one hundred dollar bills with a typed letter explaining that we were not supposed to know who the money was from but that we had a friend who knew that we needed a little extra help this Christmas.  As a family we praised God, rejoicing that an anonymous friend, a Christmas Angel, had it on their heart to bless us with a generous gift when our family needed it most.

Then came the hard part.  Once inside, mom and dad sat us down and explained all that they had learned from the doctor.  With more tears, Scott and I learned that dad’s cancer was back and that his future didn’t look promising.  Ironically, it started to rain at this point.  But when all of our questions were asked and answered around our dining room table, mom and I looked up through the sliding glass door and noticed that it had stopped raining.  There, to our surprise, was a glorious rainbow, bright in color and promise.  Immediately I was reminded about God’s covenant with Noah.  The Lord would protect and bless our family, even in the deadly realm of cancer.

Over 15 years has passed since we were visited by the Christmas Angel.  Still, the verse from Jeremiah is clearly impressed upon my heart when I think back to that late fall afternoon: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

I once thought that God sent the rainbow and the Christmas Angel as a promise that nothing was going to happen to my dad, that cancer would never take his life; and that we would always have plenty of money for Christmas presents.  Now I understand that the promise extends past the physical world and into the eternal, spiritual world.  There is no promise against cancer.  There are no promises that we will always have the funds needed to celebrate Christmas elaborately.  That’s not the point, is it?  However, God promises something better.  He loves His children so much.  He has something better planned for us than what we understand from our given circumstances.  We will go through trials, believe me we will, but He is always there.  And what He kindly offers is a love relationship with him that stands against even death.

Merry Christmas.