There is nothing quite like the experience of being Santa to 80 displaced women who will most likely not have a Christmas this year other than the one we brought them last week. Their eyes sparkle and dance, and for a split second there is a streak of that childhood wonder as to whether I just might be the real Santa after all, and that I might, in fact, have something special for them. And thanks to you, I did.

Indeed, I had a car-full of gifts for everyone. I drove a little red Mini Cooper (I called it my Santamobile) packed full with gifts right up the driveway and into the patio where they were all gathered in a sort of make-shift outdoor living room complete with a tree we brought in earlier and lit up with decorations. One of the women operates a small library of donated books, and with two bookcases as a backdrop to the tree, it looked almost like home. And then a team of elves helped me distribute your gifts to a chorus of “Thank you, Santa!” that repeated itself over and over as I moved about the area personally greeting everyone.

Home. Something only in a memory, if that. Something they are trying to reclaim. Something that Isaiah House has temporarily become for them. You brought Christmas home to them and we can’t thank you enough for your commitment to this project.

I find myself wanting to say I wish you could have been there, but then I realize you were. You were there in the many gifts you sent to touch the life of someone who would never have expected to receive anything as nice as this.

And I must say that with all that Santa stuff on, it was a strange sensation being aware that people were looking at me as seeing someone else – someone connected to childhood memories of most likely a better day.

It occurs to me that as those who reflect the face of Christ, this should probably not be a new or unusual sensation for us – people looking at us and seeing Him. It’s all in the reflection.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)