Hello, everyone. The light of the new sun, today's sun, it's just poaching up over the horizon here in Atlanta.

It's the familiar light of the early morning here. Only today is Christmas Eve.

Today, tonight, and tomorrow carry a special aura about them for many of us.

And this entire holiday season, no matter what faith you follow, carry special

meaning to each of us. You know, regardless of your faith, we are all humans. We are alive. We breathe,

we think, we feel, we experience pain, we experience joy. We try to make sense of it all. We do our best to carry on.

You know, the onslaught of COVID these past couple of years has challenged many, and maybe most of us,

to really make sense of it all. And COVID is but one of the many human challenges that are front and

center, really, every day for so many people

in this world. You know, over Thanksgiving, I watched a Christmas season classic. It was a movie

that I hadn't watched in a very long time. Frankly, I'd forgotten the details of it. Most of you

know it. It's the movie entitled It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart as the star.

If we could all rewind the tape and get to see an alternative version of our lives,

see what things would be like if we just done some things differently,

or in Jimmy Stewart's case, what would have happened if he hadn't been there at all.

For Jimmy Stewart, it was the validation that his life really was a good one,

but life well lived, that his being here really did make a difference, and that his goodness

helped others to be better. For some of us, the query might not be so dramatic. It might just be a

simple, what if? What if things had been different? What if this one

thing had happened in our lives or not happened, as the case may be? How would it have changed

the course of our own life and the life of those around us? The inspiration of that movie and the

simple revelation that comes with its message, it's been

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