Timing Conversation

your timing
unbelievable!
I am angry
I am calling you much worse things than a needler
crying to you
snotty wet messy wreck of a cry
You hold me tightly
dads get old
it is still unfair
that it is happening now
literally same day
it is like I was holding it all up
and since I am breaking
it will all fall
it is like you want me to shout 'mercy'
OK
MERCY
what else do you want from me?
MERCY!!!
I have messed it all up
mercy

Christmas Conversation

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 Conversation

Let me tell you the story

The one I didn't want to hear

Of the Son

Baby, angels, a star

Let it cast light on your darkness

Like traced silhouette

Yes, even now

Set your eyes, child, on that star

Look for it in the East

Like a beacon to follow when nothing else makes sense

Look for it and follow

Even blindly

How long?

As long as it takes

Sing now, the songs you don't feel like singing

Sing it even if mouthing the words

Like practice makes perfect

Your voice will arrive

And your voice will sing

'Redeemer!'

And it will not look anything like what you thought

Christmas Eve Conversation

me -

I don't feel like celebrating! I don't feel like singing songs and hearing stories of redemption. What about my redemption? What about redemption for my family? What about redemption for my marriage?

bigG-

I told you... I am working on it.

me-

But I am so tired. I am worn out. I can not do it any longer. Why can't redemption come now? I did everything you asked. Except.. well, that, that, that.. I am working on, I am planning on it.

bigG-

Why not now?

me-

too hard, too much all at once. And I am so hurt, and he...

bigG-

I am not asking you to trust him, I am asking you to trust me.

me-

I know. But you expect... everything... it is so hard.

bigG-

It is so hard? And this is easy?

me-

No this is TOO hard. I can not stand it.

bigG-

So why not now?

me-

OK... tell me the story again. The one about redemption. I am listening.