Well, she does want to see others, but in my mind she is coming to be with me, and I'm eager to see her. The arduous travel has become part of the Christmas tradition. I call it "the season of return," when young people hop airplanes or gas up the old car and drive for days to return to the bosom of their families.

And when they get home, the expectations pile up.

"We'll all be going to church on Christmas Eve, so get used to the idea," Mom says.

"All day Friday we'll be baking pies and cookies, so get used to the idea," Dad says.

"Yes, and on Thursday we're going to finish up the Christmas shopping, so get used to the idea," Mom says.

It's that first idea we instruct our children to get used to, the one about going to church on Christmas Eve, that rings loudest in the old belfry. You almost can hear the kids' thoughts: "I never go to church. Why do they think they can make me go to church? I'll just go to bed early, pretend I'm sick or something."

But then Christmas Eve comes and, reluctantly, your offspring don their holiday finery and go to church with the rest of the family. In churches spanning the country and the globe, that generation earnestly tries to reconnect with faith.

Sometimes a wreath of faith, intertwined with life, begins to emerge.

But if a gnarled old pastor shakes a bony finger at the congregation and scolds members for being only Christmas and Easter Christians, then this fledgling light of faith could go out. It would be easier to declare these children spiritually dead at the beginning of the service and let them all leave then. You can't win friends through scolding.

Some of these young people dread going to church because they feel guilty about their lifestyles. Maybe it's sex that troubles them, or even drugs. But it's a forgone conclusion: When the kids move away, they sometimes play too hard. And they fear that church will condemn them, forcing them into an alien existence, cut off from family, church and friends.

If instead the pastor offers a message of grace, that generation will reconnect, because it's an amazing thing.

Grace resides in the bosom of the church, the central doctrine of faith. It lies dormant in some congregations for years but then leaps to life like a tulip in spring. It can't be bought or sold. It belongs to God alone, a huge gift of pardon handed out to the worthy and unworthy alike.

Whenever I write or think about grace and young people who may have left the church, it reminds me of a young woman I once knew who came to church on Christmas Eve after many years of absence.

She was 25, college-educated, working in a fine job and making a fine salary. She was perky and pretty, and she knew it. But this night, she sat in the darkened church, thinking about her current relationship, wishing it were over. She knew when she returned home something had to be done. She also thought about all the other men in and out of her life, some who had mistreated her, some who had been too good for her.

She started to feel guilty and yearned to change. But she also knew she wouldn't be able to forgive herself -- never in a lifetime of self-confessions. She sat rigid, waiting for the ultimate rebuke, waiting to be sent home in tears.

The pastor -- a tall man looking every day of his 52 years -- stepped into the pulpit. He began to talk about how the fallen sinner can be resurrected. In everything the minister said, the young woman recognized herself: self-indulgent, selfish, a betrayer of friends, a liar, once a thief. She was the fallen sinner caught in a merciless trap.

She listened intently in the preacher's message for a way out, for some force to spring the trap so she could crawl away, wounded but alive.

And, then, mercy was delivered from the pulpit in a message of grace, that mysterious, undeniable force from God.

"I don't care if you've been with a hundred men or a hundred women, I say there is unconditional love for you," the preacher said. "I say there is grace for you and forgiveness."

The words were like the sounds of a whip, sharp snaps catching her attention. There was a way out, and it was an escape through a bearded Galilean once nailed to a cross.

The young woman smiled and laughed a little. It was Christmas, and she was rich in grace.

Clark D. Morphew