This year the holidays have taken on this entirely Jekyll and Hyde persona. On the one hand I’m excited. I’m a natural gift giver and love the season of trying to figure out the perfect gift for friends and family, especially my two boys. But this year the season while still exciting, has also become something to just try to get through. Those of you that have lost love ones, both physically, and those of us who have lost others emotionally, spiritually, and relationally experience these holiday seasons in different ways. I’m now learning these days are inevitably intertwined with our loved ones because we celebrated these times with them, made memories with them revolving around these celebrations, and the holidays bring all of that right to the forefront. You can’t go through the holidays without that slapping you in the face almost the entire time. So this year I’ve waffled between excitement and anticipation versus dread, sadness, and a drive to just make it through no matter what.
With these thoughts swirling overhead, I recently found myself singing carols in church. The first one I sang this holiday was a new contemporary version of “Joy to the World.” I cannot recall ever being brought to tears singing a Christmas carol but this one did it this year. It’s difficult to describe or explain but I just “got it” for the first time. Like I knew at a core level what this joy was about. You see this year many of the things that in the past I would point to, even subconsciously, as a foundation for joy are gone, wiped away, disappeared. Reality is I’m doing Christmas as a single parent this year. The family I had last year has been forever changed, and if you’d told me last Christmas all the things that have occurred in the last 12 months I’d have said you were crazy. There’s unfortunately a lot to be sad, upset, angry, heart broken, and devastated about this year. So happiness and merriment is not always immediately forthcoming. But this year…this year….I’ve got depth. I understand what “Joy to the World for the Lord has Come” really and truly means. I feel it and I know it down deep and experienced it all in a flash moment singing that Sunday.
I have joy, such joy this Christmas. See joy is not happiness. It is not dependent on circumstances being well. Things are not always happy or well for me. But there is joy. Joy, true joy, is rooted entirely in presence. And presence is what Christmas is actually all about. God became present to the world in a whole new way, wrapped in vulnerability and brokenness. This past 12 months in the midst of my own brokenness and pain, I’ve experienced the goodness of God’s presence. God is truly with us, this I know now unlike I ever have before. And when you experience that presence you can have joy. Not a promise of happiness or lack of any pain, but joy in the knowledge and experience of a God come close. See I know Christmas now. God came so close, into our world to become one with us in all our brokenness, pain, and despair, into all the crud, into all the suffering, into all that is not like as it should be. He came into a stable, a manger, surrounded by the smells and filth that such a setting would provide. He walked the roads of this life, the dust of the earth caked upon his feet, and the sufferings and brokenness of the people he ran into clinging to his body, mind, spirit and soul. He knows suffering, and while he doesn’t promise we won’t have any, I promise you he knows how to walk with you through in them.
This presence has taught me a lot concerning what life is truly about and what brings real joy and happiness. While it sucks that I’m no longer with my kids every single day of the year, I am present with them like never before. I appreciate them more, seeing them, hearing about what’s going on with them, even the arguing and bickering between the two of them brings its own sense of joy after I pull my hair out. Going through things like this have a tendency to simplify your life real quick and the simple things are sometimes what end up being so profound. So this year, as you make merry and seek a slice of happiness for yourself this Christmas season, know that joy is presence at its core. Take the time to enjoy being truly present with those in your lives this year. Don’t just watch your kids opening their gifts but fight to be present with them. Get down there and play with them, enjoy every second of it, the placing of stickers, the piecing it all together, and the struggle with that new toy that breaks or is just disappointing. You don’t always have to fix it, but you can just be present with them in that disappointment.
And sometimes that presence may mean walking through some suffering, some despair, some darkness with someone close to you. But truly being with others, in all the vulnerability and scariness that can sometimes entail, is also a pathway to true joy. Jesus showed us the way when he came as a baby in a manger, walked the earth, and suffered and died. He showed us how to suffer, and he showed us how to be present, and in the end we can sing and know that Joy indeed has come to the world because He chose to come so near to us, near to every aspect of our hurt and pain, near to all our brokenness and short comings. His presence is joy and this Christmas I have joy. May you find it too this Christmas season.
From The Whale's Belly 