Each year during Advent the women’s fellowship at our church has a candlelight potluck to come together and mark the beginning of Advent. It is a lovely time to be together and enjoy food and friendship and music by candlelight. Each year at the close of this gathering and also at the end of the Christmas Eve service we sing Silent Night. It is a tradition in this historically German kirche established in 1840 to remember our history and connection to the past. And so we sing the first two verses in English and the third in German raising our candles and symbolically shining our light in the world of darkness.

This year memories of times with Nadine over candlelight came flooding back and so I raised my candle in the knowledge that light and love are our eternal connection. And I sang:

Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht
Alles schläft, einsam wacht
Nur das traute, hoch heilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh,
Schlaf in himmlisher Ruh.

May we carry her light and love with us in the quiet and beauty of this Christmas season.