From our first infant babbling to our last word we make but one statement, and that is our life.
THE LETTER
SINCE THE CHRISTMAS BOX ’S humble first printing of twenty copies, more than 7 million copies of the book have been sold throughout the world. Stacked atop one another they would roughly be the height of 258 Empire State Buildings. Or about ten times higher than Mount Everest. And the book continues to sell.
More important, the healing of the book continues. Last year at an event in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a woman with no more information than that I was somewhere in the city had driven nearly two hours from another state to find me. She wanted to tell me how The Christmas Box had saved her daughter’s life.
The woman told me that her daughter had fallen in with the wrong crowd, spiraling off into a lifestyle that included sex, abuse and depression. Her daughter developed an eating disorder and had starved her five-foot-five frame down to eighty-two pounds. In her daughter’s own words, it was her way of committing suicide “without taking responsibility for a messy death.”
The doctor warned the woman that her beautiful daughter was dying and as the girl resisted all help, there was little they could do but prepare for it. Then, one evening shortly before Christmas, the mother took her daughter shopping just to get her out of the house. While wandering through the store her daughter suddenly noticed a small book. She walked over and examined it. It was The Christmas Box. As she read its flap, she felt a powerful in-explainable urge to read the book.
Her mother bought it for her and that night she read the book from cover to cover. In a letter to me, the daughter described the experience as a stream of light entering a darkened room. For the first time in years she felt hope.
The young woman called her mother and told her how she felt about the book and asked if I had written anything else. Surprised by her daughter’s sudden interest in reading, let alone anything, she went out and bought everything I had written. Her daughter said that through the process of reading the books she came to believe that God loves his children no matter how ugly the sin.
Since then she not only has recovered from her eating disorder but is now lecturing to other girls about the dangers of bulimia and anorexia. She has been a newscaster for a Christian radio station and a cheerleader for a national sports team.
The healing of the angel continues. In 1996 Utah’s governor, Mike Leavitt, proclaimed December 6 Christmas Box Angel Day in Utah—a day of healing and remembrance for those who have lost children.
The angel statue is adorned, year-round, with flowers, candles, stuffed animals and notes to loved ones. I’m told that now and then tour buses wind their way through the cemetery.
Like the book, the angel itself is spreading throughout the world, as there are many who desire Christmas Box Angel statues for their own communities. The first request came from Elko, Nevada. Not long after, I received a call from the Oklahoma branch of the American Red Cross. They wanted an angel for the survivors of the Murrah Federal Building bombing. The angel currently resides in the museum across from the national memorial.
Reader’s Digest chose the Christmas Box Angel as the cover story of their first edition of the century (“He Made Hope a Bestseller,” January 2000). Millions of people around the world have read about the angel and the requests for angels come even faster now. As I write this, there are twenty-three angels and more than eighty more in the works. (For a complete listing of standing angels see the end of this book.)
The three Christmas Box House facilities that sprang from the book have already housed thousands of children. We achieved every benefit from the facility we hoped for—and many we hadn’t anticipated. For the first time, large groups of siblings were kept together. Community donations to child advocacy increased 7,000 percent the first two months the Salt Lake shelter was open, and the average hours of schooling for a child in state custody rose from just two hours a week to thirty.
And we’ve just begun. Government leaders and child advocates from across America and around the world have toured our facility, and we are currently preparing to bring Christmas Box Houses to other states and countries. The Christmas Box House staff has addressed child advocacy world conferences in Budapest and Slovakia. Our organization was invited by the deputy minister of social services to consult with the People’s Republic of China on child welfare practices. The day will come when hundreds of thousands of children will be served by Christmas Box House facilities and advocates.
Engaged as an advocate for abused children, I often see the worst of humanity. There is much evil in this world. History abounds in it. So does today’s news. Still, through my journey and experiences I have become more hopeful of this world, not less. There is still more love than hate. We need to remember this.
There are those who will say that much of what I have written about is no more than coincidence. Perhaps. Then again, perhaps coincidence is just God choosing to remain anonymous. I believe God’s fingerprints are to be found all over the events of our lives. Decide for yourself. But if there is, in fact, a divine plan to make more of our lives, this is good news indeed.
The Bible says that “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” There could be no better explanation of the Christmas Box Miracle than this; through a small Christmas story, thousands, maybe millions of lives are somehow affected for the better. And if I cannot fully explain these miracles, it is of small concern to me. I’m satisfied just to be a part of it—a journey where the end, perhaps, was known from the beginning. The words of my grandfather’s blessing have come to pass. But in the blessing there is also this warning and reminder: The greatest work you will ever do will be as a father in your own home.
When I step far enough from the trees to consider the forest, I wonder at the scope of the miracles wrought by this little book and I cannot help but marvel at my role in it and wonder, Why me? There are better writers and better people. Maybe I was just the only one listening when the story needed to be told. I intend to ask God, if I ever get the chance.
