I have been looking back at this blog and reflecting on some of what I wrote before I stopped writing a couple years ago. This Christmas Eve Conversation post is a painful reminder of a hard Christmas Season that I endured. As I reflect back on that painful time I think about all of the many, many people who are enduring something now, people who are in a hard place during this season of "joy". For many unique reasons the Christmas Season can be very difficult for an overwhelming number of us. Much like church life or Christian life many of us get trapped in the expectations of what a "good Christian", a "good community", or a "good Christmas" should be. We idealize what we & those around us need to create a blissfully happy (that is how we are supposed to feel, right?) Christmas.
But I believe there is a reason that Christmas can feel so difficult, I believe that reason is mysteriously captured in our church calendar during this season of Advent. The struggle, this longing is a deep seated need of all humanity for Him. And in this longing and struggle we tend to explore our brokenness... the ugliness in us surfaces, we bring it out in each other and we bicker, fight, growl... over money, gifts, shopping lists, clean houses, things not being "right"... because well, it really is NOT RIGHT. We are deeply and bitterly in NEED of a savior, deeply in need of redemption.
So we gather round, we tell the stories we all need to hear, we light candles to prove to ourselves that HE HAS COME, we sing songs to help us remember in that deep soulful place that music heals... THE REDEEMER HAS COME! And it is from that place that true JOY overflows. It is from that spot in creation's redemption that we recognize HE is WONDERFUL.
So here is a new CHRISTMAS CONVERSATION. 2 years post season of pain, post darkest days, post Christmas Eve conversation and the feelings of not wanting to join the celebration...
Christmas ConversationLet me tell you the storyThe one I didn't want to hearOf the SonBaby, angels, a starLet it cast light on your darknessLike traced silhouetteYes, even nowSet your eyes, child, on that starLook for it in the EastLike a beacon to follow when nothing else makes senseLook for it and followEven blindlyHow long?As long as it takesSing now, the songs you don't feel like singingSing it even if mouthing the wordsLike practice makes perfectYour voice will arriveAnd your voice will sing'Redeemer!'And it will not look anything like what you thought
1 comment:
I loved the idea of speaking truth, perhaps 1/2 heartedly, in practice & knowing our voice will arrive. It reminds me of the the Jewish practice of praising God daily with a certain prayer in the time after a death of a loved one. Proclaiming the truth of God's goodness is a healthy practice, even when we don't "feel it"... eventually our voice will arrive.
[beautiful]
[thank you]
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