Every once in a while I share this reading at Christmas.

The excerpt comes from my novel Fugitive, which was released as part of a romance trilogy from Silhouette Books in the 1990s, and is now available in revised form as part of the three book Homecoming series on my web site. Tate, the heroine, has moved to a cabin on land in the Ozark mountains, left to her by a father she never knew.  This is an entry from her father’s journal.

“When one brilliant star hangs in the midnight sky like God’s own night-light, folks hereabouts call it a wise-man star. I can’t think of a reason to call it anything else, can you? Even the wisest of us needs help finding his way sometimes.

“There’s always been a wise-man star on Christmas Eve as long as I’ve been alive–and sometimes I think I’ve been alive forever. The star has always been there, reminding me that there’s something out there to search for, something that needs finding.

“The wise men weren’t just wise, they were brave. It took courage to go looking for that tiny baby in the manger. Not because they could have gotten lost. No, getting lost was the least of their troubles. It took courage because the baby might just get himself found, and once he was, well, lives were going to be changed forever. The son of God can do that to you.

“The son of man can do that to you, too–or the daughter of man. Go looking for the baby in the manger or the hospital, or in the pitiful, thin arms of a starving mother, and your life is changed forever, too. Some of us can’t find our camels to make that search. We sit home, and we search for the star instead. And when it hangs high in a Christmas Eve sky, then it’s just the same thing as being told we’re not all we were meant to be.

“But ain’t it wonderful the way the wise-man star just goes ahead and shines on, anyhow? Every Christmas Eve it shines. Maybe it’s God’s way of egging us on. Or maybe it’s His way of telling us He loves us, anyway, even if we’ve put our camels out to pasture this year. “I’d like to think so anyway, wouldn’t you?”

May your own holiday be filled with love, transformation and reconciliation.