Finding Hope in the Unexpected

Christmas stories are everywhere. We have our family stories and the true accounts of Christmas from the Bible, but there are also amazing historical accounts. One of my favorites is the story behind the Christmas carol, “Silent Night,” because it’s a powerful reminder how God can show up in a powerful, unexpected way.

As the story goes, it was Christmas Eve, 1918, at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria. The organ broke down. The repairman couldn’t get there in time for midnight mass, so the priest, Joseph Mohr, and the organist, Franz Gruber, had a problem. What started as a complete train wreck led to a beautiful solution. Mohr gave Gruber lyrics he’d written two years earlier, and Gruber composed a melody for them right there on his guitar.

That simple melody, born out of a technical failure, began to spread. It traveled across the world and, today, “Silent Night” is sung in over 300 languages and is the world’s most recorded Christmas song.

What you think is failure may the start of something beautiful. Trust Him who has plans for your future.