Tonight is Christmas eve. In a few short hours we’ll be opening gifts, eating turkey or it’s vegetarian stand in, and if we’re lucky be surrounded by loved ones and friends. But that’s tomorrow.

Tonight it’s the eve of something and if you consider it, life has more eves than mornings. For every time your ship comes in, there are many more times it never arrives.

I know that I’m supposed to write and help you solve your problems, but instead I’d like to tell you a little something about myself, if you will lend me the slack to do so.

The end of this year has been tough. I’ve had some clients leave suddenly. All for good reasons but still a shock to my ego. In the fall I was riding high, but ever since October I’ve been riding through a dark valley, unsure what is on the other side. And so tonight when I think about what Christmas Eve means, I can’t help but wonder when the morning will come.

This may seem sad to you and perhaps it is, but throughout all of the struggles I’ve faced I’ve come to appreciate these eves in life. Whether they last for a few hours, a few months, or even for many long years.

There is a stillness in them, a magic that happens in the cavern between this day and the next. This is the cavern where the baby Jesus was born, where Mr. Scrooge was visited by spirits, and where the Grinch exacted his revenge. This is the cavern where John McClain fought off terrorists and where I as a child struggled to sleep, out of fear that the morning would never come.

This eve is what being alive and seeking greatness is all about. Because it’s in the stillness of the night that our heart prepares itself, for either joy or sorrow. And it does so by opening itself, ready to receive the dawn and whatever it might bring.

It’s true that there are many eves I would like to end, and indeed this eve has at times been one of them. But now as I sit in the warm air, my skin still stinging from a brisk run, and type on this laptop I try to remember that to be in the eve is to be alive.

So no matter what tomorrow brings, life or death, smiles or tears, be grateful for this still and holy night for it is the bread that binds this feast of life together.