I love the holiday season, but for many, December is a difficult time - a month of sadness, not a season of light.

When I face difficult moments, I think about the advice offered by Rev. Claude Alexander, Pastor of University Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. "Whatever difficulties you may confront in the moment," Rev. Alexander says, "remember that your troubles are only part of a larger plan. Concentrate on that plan, and you will not lose yourself in the despair of the moment."

Rev. Alexander's words find confirmation in one of my most vivid childhood memories.

One evening when I was about 10 years old, Father and Mother called their children together. "You know that we're saving to buy our own home in Edmondson Village," Father told us. "Money is scarce right now, so I'm afraid there won't be many toys under the tree on Christmas morning."

Every Christmas season, I remember all of us there, crowded into the kitchen of our small, rented house in South Baltimore. As our parents shared with us the harsh financial reality of our lives, sadness filled their eyes. We could see how much it hurt them to disappoint us....

Yet, that Christmas of 1961 was to be the very best of my entire childhood.

In my mind, I can still hear our shouts as we awakened Father and Mother on Christmas morning. When they came into their small living room, it was filled with packages. "Open your presents," we told them. "Open your presents for our new home!"

Then, we children laughed so hard we could barely stand. We had never before seen our parents at a loss for words.

We sat at their feet and told them how we had secretly agreed to put all of the money from our part-time jobs together to create the Christmas they could not provide that year - how Retha had contributed her baby-sitting earnings while Robert and I pitched in our money from delivering newspapers and groceries.

When we explained how we had enlisted Mrs. Mary Westbrook in our plot, filling our wonderful neighbor's house with our gifts so that Christmas could be a surprise, Mother could only shake her head. Then, as we watched in wonder, Robert and Ruth Cummings just sat there, side by side, and cried for joy.

They realized that their troubles were part of a larger plan.

By the presents we had given them, we had helped them see an important part of that larger plan for their lives. We had shown our Father and Mother that - despite their financial struggles - they were succeeding.

Their children were learning how to love....

During this final holiday season of the 20^th Century, I hope that each of you receives insight into the larger plan for your life. I hope that you find the Hope that is central to Christmas and the Light of Hanukkah, the Peace of Islam and the Unity of Kwanzaa.

For myself, I ask only for a community that is called to help itself and others move forward toward the better time that an unknown Christian poet has described:

"When the song of the angels is still, and the star in the sky is gone..., when the kings and the princes are home, and the shepherds are back with their sheep, the work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people, and to make music in the heart."