Happy Halloween… Signed, God

I finally mailed my Christmas cards yesterday, six days before Christmas – two days earlier than last year but two weeks later than intended. As I dropped the bag of cards onto the counter at the post office, I couldn’t help but think of a Christmas card I received 12 years ago.

It was Halloween 2004. I was in my first semester as a 48-year-old grad student on a fellowship at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Sunday morning at the Newman Center, waiting for 9:00 Mass to begin, sitting in the dead center of the last row, hoping to stay as far away as possible from any other human being. Wearing sunglasses dark enough to hide my red eyes. Concentrating on taking one breath at a time.

I had taken an apartment in Chapel Hill two months earlier to take classes – I did not consider it a relocation, just temporary for school. I would be moving back home to Jacksonville when I completed my degree. The divorce papers – the last thing I ever expected – arrived a month later, plunging me into a deep, dark, incapacitating depression. That night, my only goal was to survive one minute at a time. I stared at the ticking second hand of my wall clock all night long. Each time it ticked by the 12 was a mini, 60-second victory.

That Halloween morning, a month later, sitting alone in the back of the church, I started thinking about Christmas plans. I was now alone. Isolated. Abandoned. Where would I go? I began assessing – and rejecting – each possibility. Back in Syracuse with my mother? Jacksonville with friends? Panama City with my daughter and her family? Alone in Chapel Hill? When I ran out of possibilities, I swept quickly through the list again. And again. And again. Getting more and more agitated, mind racing faster each time. I felt myself losing control.

“You need to get ahead of this,” my brain told me. “Calm yourself.”

I slowly reached for a hymnal. Maybe if I could find an old, familiar song from the choir back home at St. Joe’s, I could stop the explosions in my brain. I flipped quickly through the pages, repeating an exercise I often used with my Bible – stop at some random point, let my eyes fall on a passage and let it speak to me. But, this time, the page-flipping stopped all by itself.

The card wasn’t signed. It didn’t need
to be. I knew exactly who it was from.

I opened the hymnal and saw it – a fresh, new white envelope. I pulled it out of the book. I flipped up the flap and looked inside. A card. I pulled it out, saw the cover – and was stunned. On this Sunday morning, as I was about to lose control obsessing over Christmas plans, there it was. A Christmas card. On Halloween.

I opened the card. “Wishing you the blessings of Christmas,” it read, “and every happiness in the New Year.” No, it wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be. As someone who doesn’t believe in coincidences, I knew exactly who it was from. An incredible calm washed over my entire body, wrapping me in a warm, reassuring peace.

That Christmas card has been in a frame on my nightstand ever since. It’s a reminder that God will be there for us – He wants to be there for His children – whenever we need Him.

Merry Christmas!