Head of the Year

Much as I want to pretend that December 31 and January 1 are ordinary days, just like any other days, I can't. The Jews have it right; there is great significance and holiness to the "head of the year", and though December 31 and January 1 are not the Jewish holy days of Rosh Ha'Shanah, they never fail to inspire in me a sense of reflection, repentence, and awe.

But I do want to pretend this year, because 2014 is a year I'd like to forget. It's been one of the toughest years I've gone through in a long time, marked by loss and regret. And part of what has made it so difficult is that I had anticipated something different. I had begun 2014 with hope and expectancy. I'm not sure what I was hoping for or expecting, but it certainly wasn't a year filled with unexpected challenges or profound losses.

I was hoping for greater confidence in my relationship with God. I was hoping to be able to trust him more easily, to run to him more quickly. Instead, I found myself struggling to hold on to the fact that he loves me at all as I faced one sigificant issue after another, with a whole number of minor issues thrown in between.

I was hoping for a more vibrant prayer life. I don't really know what that was going to look like. I wanted to see more of him. Instead, I found myself struggling to hold on to the fact that he even hears me, as prayers coming from a broken heart seemed to go unheeded. Rather than seeing more of him, I had to hold on with white knuckles to the fact that he would show up at all. 

I was hoping that it would be easier to believe. Shouldn't it, at some point, become easier to believe? Shouldn't it, at some point, stop being such a struggle to have to fight the constant lies? It's not that I doubt. I know to the bottom of the soles of my feet that I am his and he is mine. I always, always come back to the truth, and I have no fear whatosoever that one day I might not. But still, when trouble comes, and it came so very often this year, the lies raise their ugly heads. "Does he really love you? Do you really think he is going to listen to you? Do you really think he even cares what you think? If you ask him for help, he's going to roll his eyes. He's going to tell you how stupid you are. He's going to tell you that it's not worth fixing anyway." I was hoping it would be easier to just believe. Instead, I found myself doing battle with the same old lies.

I was hoping that it would be easier to submit. Why, why, why do I feel the almost overwhelming urge to make everything a fight? Why, when I really do know that he is sovereign and good and has my best interests at heart, do I test and argue and talk back? I know in the end I will submit; I always do. But why, after years and years of walking with my Lord, do I still make it so difficult? I was hoping it would be easier to submit. Instead, I discovered once again that the old nature is not easily put to death.

So I stand at the cusp of a new year this time grieving, confused, bewildered, and weary. I want still to hope for the things I was hoping for last year: to see more of the Lord, to walk in confidence, to look forward with hope and expectation. I want to still hope. They are right and good things to hope for, aren't they? Does God not want me to see more of him? And then I fear that he did show me more of him, but I was too stupid and willlful to see him, too blinded by fears and hurt and sadness to see what should have been obvious. I don't know what the answers are, but I can't give up. I can't, I cannot, I will not settle for the fact that this is just the way it's going to be. I WILL see more of Jesus. I WILL learn to trust him more. I WILL learn to pray with greater fervency, greater awareness that he hears and answers. The truth will rise up sooner and the lies will lose their power faster. And one day, one day I WILL lay down my arms and stop fighting and learn to be at peace with my Lord.

I thought it would happen in 2014. Maybe it did . . . just a little. Maybe I am a step closer. I pray it is so. Will it happen in 2015? I don't dare to imagine what it could look like. I will move ahead, one step at a time. And I will pray that he gives me eyes to see and ears to hear:

"Give me eyes to see when my heart is blind,

That when I ask You'll give, that when I seek I'll find,
Give me ears to hear when my way's confused,
Let the uncertain road, still lead me back to You.

All I ask, all I seek
Is You, is You
All I want, all I need
Is You

Give me melodies in the silence, Lord,
And let the fire be where every song is forged.
Give me faith to trust in Your promises
That You are truly good, that You are all You said You are."

(Meredith Andrews - All I Ask)

Have Yourself a Crappy Little Christmas

" Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yuletide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.
Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now."

Well, it has begun again. Our annual madcap quest for the perfect Christmas. Everyone is rushing about like crazy beings. Traffic snarls to a crawl. Lines in the stores try patience which is thin at the best of times. We buy and bake and decorate and cook with impunity. We've got to have the perfect tree, just to take it down again. We have to provide cakes and cookies to friends and neighbours near and far, who neither need them or want them. Be honest, how much Christmas baking ends up in the trash can? We gorge ourselves on excess food, and then guilt ourselves when it's all over and we step on the scale. Do we really enjoy all that extra food, or is every mouthful swallowed with a spoonful of guilt, like the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down? We attend this party and that, this concert and that, this service and that, because it just wouldn't be Christmas without. We spend money we don't have (think trillions of dollars of personal debt we Canadians are carrying collectively) to buy gifts people don't need. Whee, what fun (in sarcastic font).

Every year, when it's all done, and we collapse, exhausted, fat, bloated, and broke, we promise ourselves that next year, it'll be different. But it's not. And if it is, if we actually dare to step out of the craziness, we become something of an oddity. Like the Utah mom who "cancelled Christmas". She's all over the news. Some are applauding. Some are criticizing. But everyone is noticing. Because, let's face it, for most of us, it's never really different. Despite our pledge to join the "Advent Conspiracy", we end up sucked into the vortex.

For those upon whom different is forced, there is enormous grief. Or guilt. For the family that truly can't afford gifts for their kids, Christmas is hard. For the family who has lost a loved one this past year, and is facing a Christmas without, Christmas is hard. For the single or the widow or widower or divorced who may face a Christmas alone, Christmas is hard. For those who have to work on Christmas Day, Christmas is hard. For those for whom family dynamics are complicated and messy, Christmas is hard. Which means that Christmas is hard for probably 95% of the population. It's hard for most of us, but we pretend it's wonderful.

Why? Why is it that every year, we are struck by the madness that is December? Why is it that every year, we get caught up in the quest to create the perfect Christmas? Perfect gifts, perfect decorations, perfect family, perfect food, perfect services, perfect loveliness, and it had better snow just perfectly on December 24. Perfection is such a demanding taskmaster. It sucks every joy out of life. It fills me with discontent, with anger, with striving and grasping and trying to control things over which I have no control. The search for perfection is so pointless. In this broken world, it just doesn't exist.

That's why we celebrate Christmas.

Because in this broken world, perfection doesn't exist. People get sick and die. Relationships are shattered by anger and misunderstanding and unforgiveness. Families are torn apart by addictions, abuse, selfishness, and apathy. Weird Aunt Mildred is just weird. Uncle Louis is nasty. Joe over here drinks too much and Sally is a gossip. And me? I am impatient, cynical, prone to brood, prone to pessimism I try to disguise as realism, quick to worry, quick to fear. My faith is shaky at best sometimes, and my life is frayed around all the edges.

That's when Jesus shows up -- right in the midst of my brokenness. He comes in the middle of the night, to a vagrant carpenter and his sort-of wife. He arrives in a barn, in the middle of blood and afterbirth, sheep crap and dirt. He comes into the most imperfect Christmas ever. No decorations except dung and dirt. No food except animal food. No gifts. Not on the night he was born. He had to wait two years for those. And the guests to his Christmas party would make Weird Aunt Mildred and Uncle Louis seem normal.

He comes because our world -- my world -- is not perfect. He is quite comfortable with mess. He doesn't mind brokenness. He loves Weird Aunt Mildred and Uncle Louis. He even loves me.

So I'm not going to try to create a perfect Christmas. I'm not even going to feel sad or guilty for my less-than-Christmas-card Christmas. Instead, I'm going welcome Jesus into my crappy little Christmas. I'm going to welcome him into my broken relationships, into my first-Christmas-without,  into my Christmas that follows a year of disappointments and hurt. I'm going to welcome him into my messy, mixed-up, anything-but-perfect life. I think he'll feel quite at home.

And right in the middle of my crappy little Christmas, as I look around at the hurt and heartache, I will marvel at the thought that he came. The wonder of his coming shines all the brighter against the backdrop of my mess. Oh, the baby, born in a barn, for me! For this very mess that I am in right now. It's not perfect, and that makes it perfect. Because he came for the imperfect. He came for me.

I am beginning to love my crappy little Christmas, even when my heart isn't light, when there are no golden days of yore, when my faithful friends who are dear remain in their graves rather than at my side at Christmas, and my troubles are pressing in. I know this: I am thankful beyond words that he came in a mess, for the messed-up people of this world. I am so grateful that there is no part of my crappy Christmas that surprises him or is beyond his ability to redeem. That's why he came. I am blown away, simply blown away that he would want to celebrate Christmas with me. It moves me to tears. Happy tears. I can't offer him fine presents or figgy pudding, perfect decorations or perfect anything at all. And he doesn't even care. The wonder of that is breathtaking. It makes my Christmas fairly perfect, in all the right ways.

"What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
But what can I give him?
Give my heart."

Heartache

"A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island."

It's not quite December, but it's close. The view outside my window is definitely wintry. And the way I'm feeling today, I wish I was a rock. I wish I was an island. It would be so very easy to go back to building "walls, a fortress deep and mighty that none may penetrate". It would be easy to bury myself in my books and work, to hide myself in my room, to touch no one and allow no one to touch me. It feels so tempting.

Because life hurts. Relationships hurt. And sometimes, like today, I wonder if it's worth it at all. Is it really worth it to invest time and energy and emotion into a relationship that, in a heartbeat, in a breath, just ends? Except that it doesn't end. It leaves nerve endings, raw, still firing, as if a limb is still attached when it is not. How do you scratch an itch that isn't there? How do you soothe an ache in a hand that is gone? My head knows that it's over, but my heart can't seem to remember. My head tells me it's not forever, but my heart just feels a pain that goes on and on.

I miss her. Oh, God, how I miss her.

The thought drifts through my head, If I had never met her, I wouldn't miss her now. It was easier before, when I was locked up behind my walls, in the days when I touched no one and no one touched me. It was less painful in the days before I took those first, stumbling, tentative steps toward trust. It didn't hurt so much back then. I didn't feel much of anything back then.

The thought drifts through my head, Maybe it isn't worth it after all. Maybe learning to love and trust is just a sham after all. "If I never loved, I never would have cried." It's too late to do anything about it now, because I did love and I got hurt, but I want to cradle the severed limb protectively, and make sure something like this never happens again. I find myself looking with fear at all my other relationships -- what if it does happen again? You can't tell me it won't, because you don't know that. It could. And the anticipation of further pain is enough to tempt me to withdraw behind walls so impenetrable I will not be hurt again.

I can't eat; I'm not hungry. I eat mindlessly, mechanically, just for something to do, to distract myself.

I can't sleep; I can't shut off my thoughts. I want to do nothing but sleep, hide under my covers and never get out.

Instead, I get up morning after morning, I slap on my together-face, I face a world that has little patience for grief, and I find myself wondering, Maybe I should never have taken the risk.

And missed all those coffees at Tim Horton's?

Missed the smell of her perfume when she hugged me?

Missed all the cards that came in the mail, covered with stickers, which always seemed to arrive at just the right time, which sought me out from behind my walls, and dared me to trust and to love?

Missed experiencing Costco for the very first time with her?

Missed her laughter, her smiles, her prayers?
Missed her passion for the Lord?

Missed the hours she spent, investing in my life, only to go back to what she coaxed me from?

Just because it hurts now?

She believed in me. She believed there was something in there, something beyond all the prickles and brick walls that was worth loving, that may have been sleeping but hadn't yet died.  She believed in me. And try as I might, no matter how desperately it hurts now, no matter how cold the wind blows or how high the snow drifts today, no matter how barren things look outside my window, there is some part of my heart that insists that spring will come again. There is laughter beyond the tears. There is joy beyond the grief. Maybe, just maybe, there is joy even IN the grief. Maybe there is joy in the grief because hope refuses to die, and because to feel grief, as terribly as it hurts, is better than to feel nothing at all. To feel grief means I have felt joy - and love, and I don't want that to sleep in my memory. I don't want to forget spring.

I miss her. Oh, God, how I miss her.

The thought drifts through my head, If I had never met her, I would have never loved her. She would never have loved me. And that causes a pain far greater than the grief I feel now. To have never loved her? To have never known she loved me? That would have left me in a a Narnian-like, cursed "Always winter and never Christmas."

But I did meet her. Thankfully, in God's great providence, I did meet her. The curse was broken. I cannot go back. I cannot now "not love". He used her to wake my heart. I will not live in constant fear of it happening again, (though it might) because every winter of grief marks the end of a wonderful spring of renewal, a summer of growth, and a fall of harvest, and every winter of grief will be broken by a new spring. Some winters seem to come too early -- who wants snow in mid-November? Some winters seem to last too long -- late-April blizzards are so disheartening. Some winters are deep and cold and it seems we are constantly digging out from wave after wave of snowstorms. But the curse is broken. Spring will come. Fear must melt. Hope must live. Love must live.

"A winter's day

In a deep and dark December."

But the curse is broken. Christmas is coming. And the memory of spring breezes thaws my heart.

I am not alone.

And it's ok to cry.