I've posted this at the rebuilding forum as well. I felt the following may be of help to some. If it isn't to you, pass on it. I'm sure this won't help all situations, but I know that for many, Christmas holidays can be depressing. I have a story that I think will be a benefit to us. Note: I am a Christian and this has a Christian basis. However, I think even non-Christians can pull out of this a message and application that will help them, which I'll try to do toward the end. Don't worry, I'm not trying to convert you. But if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, then feel free to ignore this. But here's the story.

Several years ago, when our second child was born, I was into a deep depression. About the worst one I've ever been in. I'm not real prone to them, but when I have them, I tend to have them big. But several factors came into play that caused it.

First, my wife had become pregnant the year before and ended up losing it in an early miscarriage. That summer, in desperation, we had one of the few everyday sex times of our marriage until this past year. She was desperate to replace the miscarried child. And we succeeded within a month, but the pregnancy was harder with this second child than it was with the first. She felt sick all the time. So after this burst of sexual activity, it all came to a screeching halt. I waited for the full nine months until she had the child, and we might have had sex once or twice during that time, I don't recall. It may have been none. She pretty much didn't want to have sex at all due to the sickness and nausea of the pregnancy. Then she had the child, and started recuperating. But within the month, she started passing gall stones. She had to have an operation to remove her gall bladder, and after that, it was several more months before she even thought about having sex again. So we went for about a year and four months without having any sex. For me that was a long time.

The other big issue was our financial situation. I had been struggling for months with the income being a little less than the bills we had. I took care of the bills, and each month I had to decide what bills to not pay. And just when I thought maybe I was about to get caught up, something would happen that would set us back, whether new tires for the car or busted pipes in the winter. I would say that had been going on for at least two years or more, and by the point our second child was being born, I simply began to lose hope that it would get any better. I felt it was fight I would never win. Add to that the pregnancy cost and the operation after that, and though I had some insurance, we still had to come up with deductibles and co-pays, which when you're short on money, feels like it might as well be a 100K bill for all it matters.

On top of that, I had graduated from college with a degree in religion. I had tried to find a parish to be the pastor of, or think about going to seminary, but we had a mobile home at the time that I'd been trying to sell for over two years off and on without success. I couldn't leave until that mobile home was sold, so I couldn't go to seminary, and was unable to land a church to pastor. Then that year our second child was born, I met with the ministerial licensing board (because I wasn't ordained yet, I had to renew my license each year), and because I'd been out of college and didn't appear to be advancing toward the ministry, they decided that they would grant me the license for one more year, but next spring I needed to either be going to seminary or pastoring a church, or they would not renew my license. So that fall, not having any bites on my mobile home, and no success at finding a church, the board meeting that next spring loomed on the horizon, and I began to realize that chance are my license would not get renewed next year, and what I'd spent 4.5 years in college for would be much harder to get.

In addition to that, events at church made me feel no one respected us or thought we could handle things. I was especially telling one time when our young adult group tended to throw monthly parties that were well attended every time. Each time, one couple would plan it. I had planned an extensive treasure hunt and food and everything. The only person that showed up was our Sunday School teacher. The message to me was loud and clear, if Cole's doing it, it isn't worth going to. I felt like few in the church thought I could handle anything.

So as we headed into December that year, I was at the lowest of lows. Not having had sex with my wife for over a year, feeling like I would never get ahead financially, bills out the wazoo, unable to get out of our mobile home, my career aspirations being swallowed by doom on the horizon, and my self-esteem at that point did plummet to an all time low. I felt like a total loser. It got so bad, I couldn't even take care of any responsibilities. I dropped everything I was doing at church, it just all fell through the cracks and splattered on the floor, which only fostered the image I wasn't dependable. I couldn't bring myself to write checks to send out the money we did have to pay bills. I had to show my wife how to do it so she could pay the bills and we wouldn't lose everything. I hit rock bottom, felt totally hopeless and helpless.

Not a good thing generally to be going into Christmas with. The holiday is known for magnifying depression. But as we approached Christmas, something happened I didn't expect. The closer Christmas came, the more I began to feel hope be reborn in me. It is like the message of Christ's birth, the birth of hope, the birth of what's really important in our lives, the birth of the One who really holds me up, became more and more of a reality as I drew near. By the time Christmas day came, I felt like the whole weight of my depression had been lifted off me. It's as if my hope no longer depended on the finances, upon sex with my wife, upon selling the mobile home, upon whether I would still have a minister licenses come next spring, or upon what others thought of me. My hope was in Him. In His reality, not my own. And my whole attitude changed. My circumstances were as bad as ever, and I had no indication that they would ever improve anytime soon. There was no outward sign I had that I could now hope. But I did. I didn't expect it, but it happened. And by Christmas, I was feeling very happy and joyful. I could tell that the depression had lifted, and I felt optimistic toward the future, whatever that might be.

Well, have you ever heard the saying that the night is darkest before the dawn, or the storm is roughest before the calm? I've never had a more dramatic example of that than what I experienced after Christmas that year. What happened was beyond my wildest dreams.

A young couple, newly married in our church, asked me if my mobile home was for sale. End result, they bought it. That gave me the money to catch up on all my bills for the first time in years, and had enough extra to plan for a move to seminary and go on a mission trip our church had been planning later that year. I made plans to go to seminary and the ministerial board gave me another year on the license with the caveat that I be in seminary next year to be reissued another one. After Christmas, for the first time in months, my wife started feeling better and we had sex. I think in part she'd been distancing herself from me because she didn't want to get pulled into my depression. Now that I was no longer depressed, she became more willing to be close to me.

In the space of about two weeks after Christmas, my circumstances totally flipped. It was the difference between night and day. But the interesting thing is that all of that happened after I moved my basis for hope beyond my own pain, circumstances, and pity party, to something outside myself, bigger than myself, and something I could rest securely on. In this case, the darkest days of my depression were literally weeks before the total reversal of all I lamented going wrong with me and my life, and the greatest joy I've probably ever experienced. And only after that, did the circumstances improve. When I no longer depended on them for my happiness.

What does that say for us here? Well, as we approach Christmas, it doesn't have to be a time of fostering depression. It can be a time for us to look at the bigger picture and realize that what has happened to us has happened to millions of people through history. Is it pretty? Is it right? Is it fair? Hell no. Far from it. But do we...should we base our hope on the performance of another fallible human being? Should we base it upon even our own feelings and happiness? Or do we see ourselves as in a much bigger picture, beyond ourselves, that can sustain us when our own circumstances say we've failed, that we are doomed?

If there is one message for Christmas, Christian or not, it is that as Christ, God in the flesh, was born to redeem mankind, and that illustrates for us that there is something bigger than each of us that was "born" into this world that we can base our hope in. And start looking at the world not through our own eyes of pain and gloom, but through the eyes of empathy and love for others as Christ did Himself. The more we can get out of feeling sorry for ourselves, and care about others, the more hope you'll find this Christmas season, instead of depression and gloom.

I hope this finds each of you looking forward to a Merry Christmas this year, despite the pain and memories and heartache the affair may have brought you. Hope never dies, because its birth was not dependent upon you. The pain is real, but so is the hope. Rest in that, even in the darkest hours.