Some times life hurts too much. And often, when it reminds us just how short it can be is the time life hurts the most.

Earlier this month, a young mother was driving her 6-year-old daughter, Lindsey, to a PTA meeting. Lindsey, buckled up securely in the back seat, was excited because she knew she was going to receive an award. She was to be honored for top sales in a money raising campaign for her school.

Another young woman was driving along the same highway when a tire blew out and she lost control of her car. A head on collision occurred with the car in which Lindsey was riding. The impact broke little Lindsey's neck. Brain death was almost immediate. Emergency personnel responded promptly. All the proper measures were taken to no avail.

The next day, the young mother, bruised and broken, stood by her husband at their little girl's bedside. They sobbed uncontrollably as life support equipment was disconnected.

The tears still flow. I am sure they will for a long time. Maybe forever. It is so wrong. So backwards for a child to go first. So impossible to explain to a younger sibling. It hurts too much. And all this, just before Christmas.

Is it only in the south? Is it only in my family? Or does everybody tend to measure life by the holidays? How many times you have heard someone say, "This is my 'x' number of Christmases without him or her."

Christmas is special. Even with the overwhelming amount of commercialism to which we have all succumbed to some degree or another, Christmas is still special. Somehow, we remember that Christmas is about love. We are happy to be reminded that God is love and the greatest gift ever given was when He gave his son, Jesus, to live and die for all mankind.

A favorite Scripture passage of mine is found in the fourth chapter of First John: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him."

Live and love...

Perhaps that is why Christmas means so much to me and my family. Why we measure our lives around the holiday. Why we come together and forget our differences and embrace all that is good. Yes, it can be done. We can embrace all that is good in another without condoning what is blatantly bad. It may not be easy, but it is possible at Christmas.

Why? Perhaps it is because we are reminded of all our own imperfections compared to the perfection of the little baby born in that stable so long ago. The baby who would become the unblemished lamb slain for the sins of the world. The baby whose Father would grieve, whose very heart would break as He watched His Son die for you and me.

I cannot pretend to feel what Lindsey's mom feels this day, but I know Someone who can, and does. Even as He welcomes the little one into Heaven's fold, His heart aches for the mother and father whose loss He knows well.

How do I know this? How do I know that God hurts when His children hurt?

By faith, I suppose. I sometimes try to explain my beliefs, and how they have become mine. I often wonder, in this day of computer technology and cloning and trips into space, why people still do not believe. Some day, I will delve into so many areas that I feel leave no room for disbelief in this age in which we live. But, today is not the day for such delving.

Today, my heart aches for Lindsey's family and the immeasurable pain they must feel, pain that will only be compounded when her gifts remain unopened on Christmas Day. Can anything good come out of such a heartbreaking story?