Soon the room looks like a paper blizzard. Tiny flecks of paper dancing and twirling through the air to the snap of scissors. Most kids fold the paper twice, cut out a few little circles, unfold it, and then tie a string to the tip in a matter of minutes.

But she folds hers six times instead of twice and carefully moves around the borders, then the inside of her masterpiece. She cuts out hearts and diamonds, curlicues and daisy petals. She makes the edges curve and peak until each one is perfect.

She’s part starry-eyed artist, part precise surgeon as she unfolds her display, slowly so it doesn’t rip. Her teacher ties a string to it and attaches it to the ceiling. It stands apart from all the others. Kaleidoscope shadows and light trickle down onto the desks.

In the end, no one notices the severe fold lines. No one notices the way the ends start to curl. No one notices the few jagged cuts that had to be made. Instead, everyone sees a funky snowflake, made to spin wild into the dark night, made to be complex and unique.

Made to be lovely.

This Christmas, I’m thankful that the love of God covers every tear, cut and fold in this paper heart. Sure, it’s a season of all-out joy. But Christmas doesn’t make our broken hearts go away. In fact, sometimes Christmas makes them ache all over again.

A Year of Shining Stars
This time last year I was doing something I rarely do on Christmas Eve. I was sitting at my parents’ house, watching a movie. Usually we all head to Grandpa’s house with my loud, crazy, wonderful family and have Christmas Eve there. There are presents and food, but the best part is long after all that’s over, when everybody sits around, drinks coffee and listens to my uncles sharing stories.

Last year, a few months before Christmas, my grandfather passed away suddenly in a car accident. For the first time since I can remember, there was no Christmas tree pulled out of his attic. For the first time, you couldn’t see twinkling colored lights in the window of the brick house on Skyline Drive. Christmas was still beautiful last year, but it was also sad. It was my first Christmas without grandparents.

I thought about them all day long—especially on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. When I started thinking of all the broken hearts around me, many far worse than mine, it made Christmas seem a little less merry and bright.

I only have to look through a few letters to read about the heartache many Brio Sisses have faced this year: overcoming addictions, moving to college, experiencing divorce with parents, watching family members battle diseases, struggling with their own diseases. Amidst all the joy a year brings—weddings and welcome homes, first dances, new jobs, new brothers and sisters, first missions trips—came the unexpected. Tragedy blindsides us sometimes. It’s enough to make a girl like me (an undeniable Christmas nerd who starts to break out holiday music in October) suddenly seem like Ebenezer Scrooge.

Flannel Shirts and Rock Concerts
Christmas still manages to get to me with the overwhelming message of the holiday season: Hope. I fell asleep last Christmas Eve in one of my grandpa’s old flannel shirts and woke up with a funny feeling. My shirt still smelled like my grandfather’s house, still felt like a big hug from him. I lay there for a while with my arms crossed around me and realized how precious Christmas was. Not only will I remember him forever —the way his voice sounded when he sang, the way he hugged me, his candor and humor—but I’ll get to see him again. That was a sweet reminder to wake up to on Christmas morning: There’s a place where I get to see all the people I love in one place again. I realized something else, too.

Two thousand years ago, the weary world rejoiced because it was broken, not because it was whole. The world rejoiced because it was desperate for a Savior, desperate for Someone who could heal all the broken, lonely places. It rejoiced because smack in the middle of sad goodbyes and broken hearts came Jesus.

The name Isaiah penned to describe Jesus is a name that resonates loud in my life this time of year: Prince of Peace. In our chaos, He’s peace. In my changing relationships, He is peace. In my family situations, He gives peace. He came to the world for us, to hold us and carry us through all this darkness, to give us the sweetest gift of all: himself.

It’s a dark and lonely world. But take heart, Brio Sisses! With a journey from a manger in starry Bethlehem to a cross on a lonely hillside, He overcame the world and brought us peace.

Sometimes I wonder if my first experience in heaven will feel like Christmas morning: Pale light streaming through the windows that make me blink open my sleepy eyes; the sound of my family’s voices; soft music coming from the living room; joy that spills up from deep inside that surprises and excites me.

I wonder if heaven will feel like the rush of excitement at a concert, the cozy comfort of a flannel shirt or the love and hope of Christmas morning. Maybe it’ll be all of that. Heaven means having all the people we love in one place and never having to say goodbye. This year, like every year, there’s a truth that shines brighter than the colored lights on Skyline Drive:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

This Christmas, dare to let His love reflect in you. Make the world wonder how something so small and fragile, so ripped and unique, can be so stunning.