A local radio station has been playing around-the-clock Christmas music for a couple of weeks. The commercials have begun, and holiday catalogs have been consistently showing up in my mail. The stores are all decked out in trees and twinkling lights. The youngest child asked just the other day, “When are we going to decorate for Christmas?”

Thanksgiving. Christmas. Family gatherings. All the festivities. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Right?

Except that’s not true for many people. Including me.

This impending season of great joy is mixed with an equal amount of sorrow. I keep trying to figure out how to capture and keep the joy, how to banish the sorrow. I lie in bed counting my blessings just before I drift off to sleep. I awake in the mornings trying to muster up the faith to believe joy can be found even in the midst of sorrow.

Scripture defines faith as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). On the flip side of the coin, faith seems a little like denying reality. So if faith and joy go hand in hand, it’s quite possible my hands are empty.

My friend recently suggested that I’m longing for what never was and what never will be. Isn’t that what faith is — the hope that all things will be made new? That relationships can be reconciled and restored? That joy comes in the morning . . . after the mourning? That sorrow serves a purpose? That the muck and mire of reality can be transformed into something beautiful?

So I’m grasping with slippery fingers at my fragile, failing faith. I want to believe that all the years of joyous occasions that have been met with sorrow can feel like a blessing instead of a curse. I need a holiday miracle.

My guess is that there are many like me — who want to experience joy that drowns out sorrow this upcoming season, who are fanning the embers of faith one more time. My prayer for us is that even the slightest hints of faith will be rewarded with the gifts of love, joy and peace in abundance this year.