Author Carolyn McCulli grew up loving her family's holiday traditions.

For me Christmas was always one of the big moments, you know, you have all your special candles burning,

you have all your special lights and the food.

And she imagined passing those traditions onto her own family someday.

I thought I would have my own husband, my own children in those moments of,

oh, look at what mommy gave me.

But in her 30s, Carolyn was struck by how different

reality had become.

My Christmas mornings weren't what I pictured.

As a single woman, she struggled

through Christmas mornings alone.

I remember the difficulty of lining up my expectations with what God was actually doing

and thinking that this isn't good, this isn't good God. God was

a good, and thinking that this isn't good God. How did you allow this to happen?

And it took a couple of years I can remember of having Christmases that were good.

They were good, but they were tough too, where I would kind of tear up and

then put my makeup back on and then go out and be with people because it wasn't exactly what I expected.

Either I could have sat down and said,

I don't like this, God, and I'm not going to celebrate you,

which is really an awful thought of self-pity on Christmas Day, that's ridiculous.

Or I could say, hmm, why has God allowed this opportunity scheduling issue in my life.

Could it be to turn my focus outward?

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