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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Christmas and Grief

When You’re Not Feeling Very Adventy

December 14, 2017 By Michelle

I’ll be honest: I’m not feeling very Adventy this Advent.  I don’t have that sense of anticipation, the expectation that is often present in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I’m just…here. Slogging. Going through the motions. Checking chores off my list. I feel a heaviness inside, an unease I can’t quite put my finger on.

I find myself wishing it were Lent instead. Somehow these lackluster, angsty feelings seem more appropriate for those somber, mid-winter days.

Sixteen years ago on a sultry August day, during the early hours of labor with Noah, my first-born, I sat outside on the back patio, my hands resting on my big belly as it tightened and released, tightened and released. I called friends and chatted happily. Later I paced the backyard, deep-breathing as the cicadas sawed the thick humidity. I thought about my baby boy, my heart, head and gut a tangle of nervous, jangling joy.

Fourteen hours later I lay in a hospital bed in the dark. The nurse had piled three blankets on top of me. They were warm from the dryer, but still, I shook uncontrollably from somewhere deep in my core, like seismic waves rippling out from an epicenter. It wasn’t cold exactly, and I wasn’t in pain – the epidural had largely alleviated that — but something unfamiliar and frightening was happening to my body.

“You’re in transition,” the nurse told me, patting my shoulder as I gripped the sheets.

I was afraid. Around me the voices of encouragement receded. Everything grew hazy, the end point a dim prick of light. I lost focus. The goal seemed far away, unreachable. So fixed was I on the fear and the unfamiliar, I lost sight of everything else, including the baby boy I was about to birth into the world.

Transition…not the most appealing part of labor. Transition leaves you feeling shaky, out of control, lost and anxious. Transition dims your focus, blurs the way, has you gripping the bed sheets. Transition is when the hard, necessary work gets done, the work that will lead you out the other side again. But it’s not fun. It’s lonely and scary.

When You're Not Feeling Very Adventy

I feel like I am in some sort of transition right now, though I don’t know what I am transitioning out of and in to. It’s not as frightening as that first labor transition by any stretch, and yet, there is still a palpable sense of unease.

I recently read some verses in John that resonated with me. Something kept bringing me right back to the start of the paragraph to read and reread the same words again:

“Your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy, that a child is born into the world. So with you: now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:20-22)

Your time has come, says the Lord. Now is your time of grief.

Maybe you’re like me right now. Maybe you’re not feeling particularly Adventy this Advent. Maybe you’re feeling a little lost, a bit afraid, lonely, weary, shaky. Maybe you’re doing the hard work of transition. Maybe you’re not seeing Jesus very clearly right now when it seems like everyone else is.

It’s okay. Those words I read in John? Those words are from God, telling us that it’s okay.

Now is my time of grief. And the timing may be less than perfect, it being Advent and all, but now is the time nonetheless.

There’s hope. God still sees me, and I will see him again. And we will rejoice, Jesus assures me, for no one can take away our joy.

*This is actually an edited repost that was featured in the December issue of Gather magazine. When I re-read it this week, though, it resonated with me, because truth be told, I’m not feeling very Adventy this Advent. I hope, if you’re in a similar place, it will offer you a bit of solace. Peace, friends. 

 

Filed Under: Advent, grief Tagged With: Advent, Christmas and Grief, grief

When You’re Having an Ugly Christmas

December 22, 2014 By Michelle

I wrote this post last year and ran it around this time, and I decided to re-run it this year because I suspect some of you might be struggling through an ugly Christmas. Friends, if you are grieving, weary, burdened, anxious, frustrated, disappointed or just plain out of sorts, this post is for you. If you can only focus on one thing this season, make it this: God didn’t come for the pretty and the perfect, the sparkly, glittery, arranged-just-so. He came to us as a human being so he could be with us, as close to us as humanly possible, which includes, of course, all of our ugly, unseemly, unsavory parts. Our anger. Our bitterness. Our disappointment. Our grief. Our loneliness. Our despair. Our ugly Christmases. God came to be with us in that.

treewithtext

I told Brad the other night at dinner that this is the first year in several that I have actual felt even a bit of Christmas joy. Three years ago we mourned the loss of my mother-in-law, Janice, who had died in September. The following year my father-in-law Jon was diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before Christmas. Last year was our first Christmas without him. Let me say point-blank: Christmas sucked for three years straight.

It’s so easy to get ensnared in the glittery, caroling, iced cookie expectations of Christmas, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong — those parts of Christmas are beautiful and holy and joyful. But when they are missing, overshadowed by illness, death, grief, depression, fear, loss, anger, ugliness, fill-in-the-blank-with-your-burden, we feel ripped off. Gypped.

We feel like Christmas with all its magic and miracles and jingling joy has passed us right by like a cherry-red sleigh swishing through freshly fallen snow.

We feel like Christmas has left us standing on the curb, spattered in dirt-blackened slush.

But listen for a second, friends. I know this, because I’ve been there, up to my eyeballs in grief and anger, bitterness and disappointment right in the middle of the Christmas season. And I can say this because I know it’s true: Christmas is the ugly, too.

Dare I even say it? The ugly, the underbelly, the dirt-encrusted slush? That is the real Christmas.

Our God was born human in a barn. And though we like to pretty it all up with our hand-carved, hand-painted nativity scenes arranged just so on our coffee tables and mantels and hearths, that barn our God was born in, the real Bethlehem-barn, was ugly.

There was no Christmas tree strung with tiny white lights in that barn. No “Silver Bells” and “Winter Wonderland” piped in over the sound system. No gifts wrapped in foil, no perfectly iced sugar cookies, no dainty hors d’oeuvres arranged on special holiday serving dishes and no sparkling punch poured into delicate crystal glasses.

No, that barn was dirty, with dung-caked floors and dim, dusty light and the clattering and thumping of hooves. That barn didn’t smell like a French Vanilla Yankee Candle; it stunk like filthy animals and rank, unwashed bodies. There was blood on the floor of that barn, and amniotic fluid and afterbirth. The mother who gave birth in that barn was a young, unwed woman. The father was a humble carpenter. And the visitors were motley crew of shepherds who’d come straight from the pasture.

It was not pretty and perfect in that barn, and you want to know why? Because God didn’t come for the pretty and the perfect, the sparkly, glittery, arranged-just-so. He came to us as a human being so he could be with us, as close to us as humanly possible, which includes, of course, all of our ugly, unseemly, unsavory parts. Our anger. Our bitterness. Our disappointment. Our grief. Our loneliness. Our despair. Our ugly Christmases.

God came to be with us in that.

Truthfully, these last three years I couldn’t really see that God was with me in the ugly Christmas. I was so angry, so sad, so worn out, I could barely leave the house – the mere thought of twinkly lights and glittery decorations and cheerful music filled me with too much despair. But I see it now. I see now that he was there, right there with me in the muck, disappointment and hopelessness. He was there.

And so I need to tell you this today. If you’re in that place, if you’re in the ugly Christmas right now, know this: you might not see him, you might not feel him, you may be downright hating Christmas right now, but God is with you. He was born in a barn, amid filth and stink, especially for you, especially for this exact moment, especially for the ugly Christmas.

 

Filed Under: grief Tagged With: Christmas and Grief, When Christmas Falls Short of Expectations

When Your Christmas is Ugly

December 18, 2013 By Michelle

I told Brad the other night at dinner that this is the first year in several that I have actual felt even a bit of Christmas joy. Three years ago we mourned the loss of my mother-in-law, Janice, who had died in September. The following year my father-in-law Jon was diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before Christmas. Last year was our first Christmas without him. Let me say point-blank: Christmas sucked for three years straight.

It’s so easy to get ensnared in the glittery, caroling, iced cookie expectations of Christmas, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong — those parts of Christmas are beautiful and holy and joyful. But when they are missing, overshadowed by illness, death, grief, depression, fear, loss, anger, ugliness, fill-in-the-blank-with-your-burden, we feel ripped off. Gypped.  We feel like Christmas with all its magic and miracles and jingling joy has passed us right by like a cherry-red sleigh swishing through freshly fallen snow. We feel like Christmas has left us standing on the curb, spattered in dirt-blackened slush.

But listen for a second, friends. I know this, because I’ve been there, up to my eyeballs in grief and anger, bitterness and disappointment right in the middle of the Christmas season. And I can say this because I know it’s true: Christmas is the ugly, too.

Dare I even say it? The ugly, the underbelly, the dirt-encrusted slush? That is the real Christmas.

Our God was born human in a barn. And though we like to pretty it all up with our hand-carved, hand-painted nativity scenes arranged just so on our coffee tables and mantels and hearths, that barn our God was born in, the real Bethlehem-barn, was ugly.

There was no Christmas tree strung with tiny white lights in that barn. No “Silver Bells” and “Winter Wonderland” piped in over the sound system. No gifts wrapped in foil, no perfectly iced sugar cookies, no dainty hors d’oeuvres arranged on special holiday serving dishes and no sparkling punch poured into delicate crystal glasses.

No, that barn was dirty, with dung-caked floors and dim, dusty light and the clattering and thumping of hooves. That barn didn’t smell like a French Vanilla Yankee Candle; it stunk like filthy animals and rank, unwashed bodies. There was blood on the floor of that barn, and amniotic fluid and afterbirth. The mother who gave birth in that barn was a young, unwed woman. The father was a humble carpenter. And the visitors were motley crew of shepherds who’d come straight from the pasture.

It was not pretty and perfect in that barn, and you want to know why? Because God didn’t come for the pretty and the perfect, the sparkly, glittery, arranged-just-so. He came to us as a human being so he could be with us, as close to us as humanly possible, which includes, of course, all of our ugly, unseemly, unsavory parts. Our anger. Our bitterness. Our disappointment. Our grief. Our loneliness. Our despair. Our ugly Christmases.

God came to be with us in that.

Truthfully, these last three years I couldn’t really see that God was with me in the ugly Christmas. I was so angry, so sad, so worn out, I could barely leave the house – the mere thought of twinkly lights and glittery decorations and cheerful music filled me with too much despair. But I see it now. I see now that he was there, right there with me in the muck, disappointment and hopelessness. He was there.

And so I need to tell you this today. If you’re in that place, if you’re in the ugly Christmas right now, know this: you might not see him, you might not feel him, you may be downright hating Christmas right now, but God is with you. He was born in a barn, amid filth and stink, especially for you, especially for this exact moment, especially for the ugly Christmas.

And with Emily Freeman for her December Tuesdays Unwrapped series. 
 

Filed Under: grief Tagged With: Christmas and Grief, Imperfect Prose, Jennifer Dukes Lee TellHisStory, When Christmas Falls Short of Expectations

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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