Angels unaware

A horrible Christmas 2009 turned miraculous

This is the promotional photo for the TV movie “Angels Unaware” that hit Amazon Prime in October 2022 and was directed by Joanne Hock. Bridgestone Multimedia Group distributed the movie.

I dreaded Christmas 2009.

I was in no mood for it because of what occurred nine weeks previously. I was fired from my dream job–editorial page editor–that I had been doing since July 2005 at The News-Herald in Willoughby, OH where I was employed for more than 13 ½ years.

But God decided Christmas 2009 was about angels unaware, not personal crisis.

I was at work at a normal time on Monday, October 19, was in a meeting with the executive editor, was fired from a company in the throes of a huge financial crisis, and soon at home dealing with loss, a personal financial crisis, and wondering about the next job.

Worse, the Great Recession train-wrecked large swaths of the newspaper industry, with added chaos unfolding throughout the U.S. economy. 

I was never depressed, but I experienced loss with all five of my senses. It was palpable. That was driven by the multiple aspects of work separation that made it seem personal.

However, our church, Calvary Fellowship Baptist Church in Painesville, Ohio, had our backs every step of the way in this new season of loss.

At an event where our son was in elementary school, we told someone in the school office of the situation. They assured us there would be Christmas gifts for our kids.

The job hunt was on, with few bites in Northeast Ohio for anything that resembled writing or communications. I had a few interviews, but no job offers. I was soon looking in other states: Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Georgia, Florida and Texas.

It was a time when Psalm 34 became the Psalm that I love with the repeated theme of God hearing and delivering David. Psalm 34:4 (ESV) states: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.”

As Christmas loomed, I was in no mood. I didn’t put up lights across the front of the house. My Mother was living with us and she read me the riot act. She related an account of when my Father died in December 1969, which led us staying briefly with one of our aunts, a sister to my dad. My Mother said she told our aunt that she had two young boys and they were going to have Christmas. My Mother told me to get outside and put up the lights for Christmas for my children. I put lights up on the house during a snowstorm.

Yes, my wife and I bought some Christmas presents for our son and daughter, but it was not normal. I ran into former co-workers in a store or at the gas station. We talked to catch up on what was happening. 

But God logo/Facebook

But God . . . 

It’s one of the best phrases in Scripture.

It reveals God’s sovereignty. It demonstrates God’s love, compassion, understanding, mercy, and kindness. It helps people grasp the significance of God taking the most dire circumstances and intercepting the pain, sadness, or loss at that moment and helping everyone understand God did that. He alone gets the glory because He alone is worthy of the glory.

God shocked me–and altered Christmas.

I forget the reason there was no school, Christmas break or a snow day. However, I do recall it was a few days before Christmas.

I was inside playing with my kids in the mid afternoon when a white pickup truck pulled into the driveway.  I greeted a man and his daughter through our connected garage. 

“Is this the home of Curt and Lynette Olson?” he asked.

“Yes, it is,” I said.

The man handed me large bags and said there were Christmas presents for Samuel and Olivia–complete with specific items they had on their Christmas lists–and items for my wife and me. It was that matter of fact.

I tried to find out who the man was and how he knew about us. He rejected efforts at details. After a “Merry Christmas,” the man got back in his white pickup truck with his daughter and I never saw him again.

My wife worked as a teacher at a local preschool just a few miles from home. I told her the story when she came home and she was as puzzled as I was.

We had already picked up the gifts for the kids the school promised.

I tried figuring out who brought a Merry Christmas to the Olsons in a year that was anything but merry and bright.

It began a 15-year journey that transitioned to the state capitals of Austin, Texas and Columbia, South Carolina, before returning home to Chautauqua County, NY. In a five-year period–summer 2011 to 2016, my family moved the equivalent of New York City to Los Angeles. Starting in July 2011, we went from Painesville Township, Ohio to Round Rock, Texas, then to Columbia, South Carolina, and eventually  Frewsburg, New York, near the hometowns of my wife and me in Western New York state in August 2016.

I had heard of angels unaware. I also had talked to other followers of Jesus Christ who relayed their own stories with specific details.

The Christmas that I regretted the most, suddenly changed.

I’ve had two major operations and was diagnosed in summer 2013 with an auto-immune condition. None of those surpassed how horrible the 14 months of October 2009 November 2010 were for me. I questioned my purpose for a career after I had ascended to my dream job in the newspaper business and eventually health issues unfolded. I have been fighting ever since to establish legitimacy and credibility with my writing again after a season where I didn’t want to write again. God rekindled that fire in March 2023.

In a year where the things that could go wrong did go wrong, God used angels unaware to help me see God again.

God made Christmas 2009 merry.

There’s no doubt that God did that.

Soli Deo Gloria.