Where are you Christmas?

'Where are you Christmas
Why can't I find you
Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter
You used to bring me
Why can't I hear music play

My world is changing
I'm rearranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too

Where are you Christmas
Do you remember
The one you used to know
I'm not the same one
See what the time's done
Is that why you have let me go'...

Christmas (enter big sigh here).  What a season.  A season that for me used to feel so magical, has turned into... well...let's just say a not so magical time.  And honestly, I have been blaming a lot of things for that.  And granted, some of these things seem like legitimate reasons that could have made Christmas time not so jolly over the past 4 years; including job losses, moving in and out of different homes, even down to our baby boy's first Christmas being spent isolated in the hospital with a horrible infection.  These are good reasons, right?  Good reasons to feel sorry for myself.  To get depressed.  To even get obsessive about trying to bring back the magic in my home.  Some would say yes.  I have been saying yes.  For the past 4 years I have blamed the state of my heart this time of year on the broken and hurtful circumstances surrounding it.  But really, how selfish?  How self-obsessed?  I mean there's always pain and hurt and tragedy happening in this world all around me.  It might not be directly affecting me, but people struggle this time of year with death and illness, starvation and homelessness, and more pain and loss than I may ever taste in my lifetime.  Whether it's December 25th or the middle of July, we are all hurting.  We are all hopeless.  We are all exhausted and stressed.  This season really has nothing to do with it, except the immense amount of pressure to be merry & bright despite the brokenness.  

By the way, I feel it's important to insert a disclaimer here, I write these words simply as a processing of my own heart.  Not as a judgment on anyone else's.  I learn best from writing.  I am a processor.  I don't plan the words that get typed through my fingers.  I simply spill them onto the keyboard and more often than not re-read what I wrote and think, that wasn't really what I thought I wanted to say when I first sat down to write, but it's just real and honest and is healing for my heart.  Could I privately write this in a journal?  Yes.  But I know for me, other people's words and experiences touch and inspire me.  When a heart is willing to be vulnerable and real and put that out for the world to see and possibly scrutinize, I find it courageous and refreshing.  So this blog of mine really is nothing more than a tired and worn out wife and mom, trying her best to be raw.  Hoping that someone out there won't feel so alone in their emotions.  And really, just trying to find an outlet that allows me to digest all of mine.

So...back to the topic at hand.  Christmas.  I used to think that joy was found in the absence of sadness, or mourning, or pain.  But what I think I am starting to discover, starting to peel back a tiny little corner of, is the fact that joy not only IS found, but CAN ONLY be found in and through pain and loss.  It is only in the hopelessness that we can recognize our one and only true HOPE.  I will never forget the Christmas I spent 4 years ago by Hudson's bedside. And while I often have used this as a reason to hate the season, what I am beginning to see even as these words fly onto the screen is that this desperate and painful Christmas actually taught me more on joy and peace and hope than all of the others combined.  Because on the day I walked in to find my son with a life-threatening infection from one of his surgeries  The day I literally signed this little life away into the hands of the doctors.  It was on this day that I lost something.  I lost something major.  I lost the Christmas I had hand-made.  The one I had crafted all on my own.  The one that wasn't even about all the bad things like consumerism, and greed, and getting that present that I just couldn't live without.  Instead, I lost the Christmas that was about all the good things like family togetherness, health, and happiness.  I wish I could put into words what happened in my heart that night as I went to sleep.  I literally prepared myself to lose my son.  I considered the possibility that all would not be well with him.  And I let him go.  And for a moment, a very brief moment, I felt free. Because I let go of Christmas.  And I clung so hard to Christ.  That night, Jesus Christ was not just one part of the Christmas story, or a cute little baby lying in a manager...He was all that I had.  He was THE story.  The only story.  My only hope.  My only joy.  Through the pain, and the anger, and the tears, I found Him.  In a way I never had before.

So here I am.  4 years later.  5 days before Christmas.  Stressed about the wrapping that hasn't been done.  Feeling inadequate for all the things I didn't do this holiday season with my kids that I wanted to.  The Christmas cookies that never did make their way to the neighbors doorsteps, the unopened advent calendar days that sit and mock me, and the baby Jesus from our nativity scene that has been lost since the day I put it out for the kids to play with.  And all I can think is how I have done it again.  I have made Christmas about all of these good things and let go of the One who makes ALL THINGS GOOD.  Oh this wayward and foolish heart of mine.  How quickly it can run from the freedom and life offered to it.

So I guess it's never too late.  5 days before Christmas, it's not too late to turn from my foolish ways and to cling once more to my precious Savior.  To hug my kids tight and sit close to them on Christmas Day as they struggle with their own selfishness and desire to have this day look a certain way.  To understand them, and not reprimand them.  To allow the tears, the anger, the pain and the losses...in my heart and in theirs.  Knowing full well it is this brokenness that will lead us to our only true JOY.

Thanks for listening, blogosphere.  Here's to hoping this brief glimmer of wisdom and peace doesn't disappear the moment I hit 'Publish.'  Merry Christmas to all of you!