When God redeemed my worst Christmas ever by using it for good, it came as a big surprise. Most likely because 1982 was the year of my worst Christmas ever, and the using it for good part didn’t come along until December of 2024.

42 years is a long time, which explains my surprise.

When Christmas of 1982 rolled around, our medically fragile baby was 7 months old. He’d already been through major surgeries, airplane rides, hospital stays, tube feedings, and who knows how many doctors’ appointments. Had I not been too sleep deprived to muster a single creative thought, I could have penned the lyrics for “The Twelve Days of a Medically-Fragile Kid’s Christmas.”

All we wanted for Christmas that year was to stay home.

So we did. It wasn’t the first time my husband hadn’t gone home for Christmas, but it was the first for me. Thanks to dear friends in the town where we lived, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Those friends—he was our pastor, his wife was our son’s back-up babysitter, and their 2 older kids were my students—invited us to Christmas dinner. Their extended families were there, too, and our baby was the center of attention all day.

Even so, Christmas 1982 was my worst Christmas ever.

That changed this past November when one of their sons texted us. Having visited his parents during the summer, we were aware of our former pastor’s dementia and increasing care needs. We’d told his kids to call us if they needed extra help. In his text, the son asked if we could come and stay with his parents for the final week of his mom’s recovery from surgery.

To read the rest of When God Redeemed My Worst Christmas Ever and Used It for Good, please visit Key Ministry’s blog for special needs parents.

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Photo by CHIRAG K on Unsplash