“A Christmas Prayer”
By Dorothy Hsu
It’s Christmas, Lord.
The season to be jolly and all that.
But some of us aren’t so jolly.
It’s time for family to be together,
To sing ‘I’ll be home for Christmas.’
But Lord,
Some of our loved ones wont’ be home
This year,
Or ever.
And some of us find it very difficult
To shop for Aunt Jane
And Grandpa.
Some of us find our minds so
Occupied with a desperately ill child,
Or a tired worn-out body
That we can’t cope with crowds
Or carols.
And some of find that
Happy memories of Christmases past
Make this Christmas seem
Hollow.
Altogether unbearable.
It’s a temptation, Lord,
To just skip it.
To refuse to decorate a tree,
Or send a card.
Or purchase a single present,
For one alone,
Such an approach is possible,
I suppose.
But for little ones in a home,
Lord,
It’s unfair.
It takes tremendous strength
For some of us to say
“Merry Christmas” this year.
More strength than
Some of us even possesses
And that’s exactly why you came,
Isn’t it, Lord?
Christmas Joy, compiled and edited by Joan Winmill Brown (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), 48-49.