News-Record.com

We were lining up in the pew at our church's Christmas Eve candlelight service when a friend motioned us up to sit with his family. We hesitated because we were just about in place and the sanctuary was filling rapidly. My wife and I exchanged looks and we -- me, my wife and our two daughters -- moved to sit next to our friends. We exchanged quick greetings and settled in for the service.

I reached for the hymnal and found the first hymn, "Good Christian Friends Rejoice." It wasn't until after we sang the hymn and I remarked to my eldest daughter that this was the politically correct version of the original, that I looked at the front of the hymnal. Inscribed in gold on the cover was our eldest daughter's name. I did a double-take, in a split second considering and discounting the possibilities that she brought it or that our friends had planted it for us to find. I scanned the two other hymnals within reach to see if they had inscriptions; they didn't.

I silently showed it to her and her face registered surprise, then burst into a huge smile. She looked at me quizzically, and I shrugged. All I could think was that someone had gifted the hymnal in her name at her confirmation several years earlier. But neither my wife nor I could remember any notice of that.

This is a large church with many members and many hymnals. That we would sit at that pew at that time...well, its not a Christmas miracle, but it was a wonderful Christmas coincidence that made the service even more special.

Update: After reading this item in the newspaper, I received a note from the choir director: I read your story in the N&R about finding the hymnal at a Christmas Eve Service! If it had her name printed on the front in gold, then it is actually her hymnal! We present them to the children when they are in 6th grade if they have been in Choristers before they move on to Youth Choir, so that is what that is. She must have either left it at the church or perhaps never received it, but if you can find it again, you should take it home because it belongs to her!