In late September, according to a story floating around this Christmas season, an ardent Democrat was on his knees in prayer.

Worried that McCain's campaign momentum had overtaken Obama, he offered God a deal. "Do something," he prayed, "that will ensure Obama's election victory, and I will give up half of everything I own."

God's response, according to the story, "Deal!"

The financial crisis that came shortly afterward assured Obama's victory, and our ardent one lost half his fortune.

If you could assume that the story were true, you would have to wonder what that ardent Democrat thinks now of the deal he made last fall.

Maybe he would have regrets. Or maybe he would tell us that Obama's message of hopefulness and the prospects for change are still worth more than the half of his property that he has lost. Hope, he might say, is precious.

But in a season that celebrates hopefulness, we are surrounded by the consequences of economic crisis. The losses of savings, jobs, and homes are testing even the most optimistic among us.

Despair tugs against hopefulness, even our ardent Democrat would have to come to terms with reality. If the change that his successful candidate has promised comes about, it will not come all at once and it will be incomplete. Surely, that Democrat's high hopes would be tempered by the fearfulness and uncertainty that the financial crisis brought, even as it paved the way for Obama's victory.

Something comparable was going on in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.

Of course, the situation there was much worse than today's America. The people were subject to a foreign power and there was deep poverty.

But something happened that brought hope to a despondent people. In the words of the Christmas carol "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."

The hymn celebrates the birth of the Christ child and the hope it brings, especially at this season.

"The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more."

Just how and why the birth of a child in a stable has been a cause of such widepread and longstanding hope is a miracle in itself. Certainly, without the earthly life and death of the adult Jesus, the joyful story of his birth would not have survived to inspire us today.

But it did survive and its message of peace on earth, goodwill to men, and hope is, for me, the greatest gift of this season.

Worth more than half of what I own.

Worth everything.

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D.G. Martin is the host of UNC-TV's North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Fridays at 9:30pm and Sundays at 5 p.m. Check his blog and view prior programs at www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch