Christmas Lost and Found
Something in me does not like Christmas. What a shocking statement to even think, much less to commit to the permanence of writing. How could I be so Bah Humbug to even suggest that Christmas is not the shining season of the year when I delight in God’s greatest gift to me: His Son, born in the lowly manger. And yet, every year there is a dissonance within me as my “Joy to the World” self debates with the my “How many days until December 26th?” self, and I wonder what is wrong!
My earliest memories of Christmas are sweet and magical. My mom announced “Christmas Magic” to point out every lighted house on evening car rides. Our parents lavishly blessed us with gifts: dolls and games, books and Christmas nighties, yearly treats and sweets for my sister and myself. My jealous sometimes-friend down the street complained we were spoiled, but I didn’t know what I could do about that.
Christmas was warm and loving, a day to be anticipated. Every year, the decorations, centered around the nativity scene. It stood before me, a mystic representation of a story I knew but don’t remember being told. I moved the figures carefully, to the pa-rum-pa-pum-pum of a song. Christmas was Santa, but Jesus was always there.
Christmas-time losses
Then came the coldest and saddest Christmas day. My dad lay in the hospital, barely conscious, giving us cameras for gifts as we stood at his bedside. One day later, he fell into a coma and the next he was gone from my life forever . . . too soon for me to say the things I had meant to. I suppose this so-close-to-Christmas event changed the day for me irreparably.
I have some pictures of my cousins and my sister doing handstands on my grandpa’s lawn, in the cold December sunshine. This was after the funeral, taken with my Christmas camera, the one Dad gave to me. How could we play? Why were we laughing? There was nothing joyous or funny in that December when the childhood of my Christmas was turned upside down.
In December, years later, I was focused upon the busyness of putting Christmas together. Literally, my husband Jeff and I were assembling a massive, metal, unbreakable bunkbed in our boys’ room. It was to be a Christmas gift and as is often true of valuable things, it wasn’t at all easy to assemble.
As I held a heavy headboard upright, we heard an urgent knock at the door. Suddenly the entire mood of the household changed from the White Christmas movie and put-the-bed-together task, to urgency and crisis. Tyler, our young neighbor, desperately informed us that his dad had been in the bathroom for he didn’t know how long, and the door was blocked closed.
How do I comfort a neighbor child I hardly know? What would his mom, driving frantically home from out of state, want me to do or to say? What if we prayed but it was already too late? Would we do his heart more harm than good? We provided kindness, and a safe place, all I had to give. But Jeff, my husband, entered his home, directing the paramedics and police to the scene of painful loss. He bore the brunt of “being a good neighbor.”
Another knock at the door brought his grandmother and truth, a hard and piercing truth. From the hallway of my children’s bedrooms we heard the cry of a boy whose childhood Christmas had been turned upside down, so terrifying for my own children, and so memory jarring for me. Did I cry out like that in the hospital long ago? What did those around me endure as my own security was ripped away and the magic of Christmas dissolved into the painful darkness of winter?
Another year comes and goes. It is early Christmas morning, still and dark, when Jeff asks me to listen to his breathing. A rattling is very certainly present in his right lung. As we cuddle together, sleepy no more, my mind races. We must go to the ER. If we wait, surely it will end as tragically as that one fateful day so long ago.
Was this how it happened with my dad? Jeff, with his multiple cancer and autoimmune battles, caught a common cold from the kids and now he has pneumonia. It feels like déjà vu. My panic overwhelms me and I lie in bed on Christmas morning imagining our lives turned upside down and remembering, remembering the family who lost a father.
The One I found
Our Christmas that year did not end in tragic disaster. The doctor gave antibiotics and hope was restored. When I arose on Christmas Day, I found safety in the real truth, that God is my refuge and my strength, an ever-present help in times of need. And how I need Him, the One who makes all things new. His perfect love banishes fear.
My family, at least for now, is still intact. But more importantly, through every loss, every unexpected tragedy, and every healing too, Jesus brings bright hope that shines into the cold winter, and dispels darkness with His light.
I read that Jesus came “to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:3). That kind of hope from Jesus at the center of Christmas is what I need!
As I ponder why these hurts have come in the moments we expected celebration, I circle round to this question: Would we pass up the best gift, the most precious present, if we didn’t deeply know our desperate need for it? From this lens, I can be grateful for even the sorrow and loss.
So while the busyness and expectations of the Christmas season can exhaust me, I am grateful for the hope Christmas brings. I’m figuring out, like the Grinch, that “maybe Christmas means a little bit more.” My heart is full of gratitude because my God who came into my darkest night and my coldest place, makes all things new.
Meet Anna Gibson
Anna Gibson is a homeschool mama, teacher, writer and follower of Jesus. When she isn’t riding roller coasters with her teens or playing bass with her worship team family, Anna attempts to capture the beauty of life through words. It is her goal to accent God’s grace through the struggles, the dark places, and the ordinary days of life.
Where to find her . . .
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
Creating Ripples
If you would like to cultivate rhythms in addition to gratitude that will empower you live on mission in your neighborhood, check out Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase the book.
