'Tis the friggin' season.

December is now upon us. This time last year I remember being nervous, almost wanting to avoid the holiday season for the simple fact of it being the “first” Christmas since losing Mikael. In all honesty I think this time last year I was actually prepared to skip Christmas all-together. And as the month wore on I became even more ready to move to the woods and never return.

Every happy, merry and joyful post I saw made me literally want to throw up. Just blow chunks of sadness all over everyone else’s “happy Christmas” brag show. I was bitter, and in all honesty maybe still am a bit too.

But…

This year as we started to prepare for Christmas at church I felt excited. I felt those familiar feelings of joyful anticipation building up and there were hardly any traces of sadness coming up with them. Or maybe I’m just more used to them. That is also a possibility. But, it felt SO good. Finally! Like, let’s dance our way through December good. Like Elf excited, eat noodles with syrup and decorate the heck out of every space.

But then tragedy struck. In an instance a family was taken, and it’s affected a huge amount of people. For my parents and I, we are tied particularly close to one of the families affected. I got an unexpected call early one Sunday, and it ALL came flooding back. And not even necessarily in an emotional way, more so in a physical sense. It’s amazing how grief affects us physically. Our cells seem to remember in a way our minds don’t.

And now, being the empath that I am, my heart feels heavy once again as Christmas approaches. My heart feels my own familiar grief mixed in with grief for the sake of others, especially because in that same week, someone in my church community was also affected by an unexpected loss.

I feel very deeply. I know I’ve shared this before. I usually have the ability to shelter it from others, but the reality is my entire being feels what those I love feel, or so it would seem.

I will also not shy away from the fact that the last six months have been such a mixture of struggle and excitement. My life has opened up to some amazing opportunities and any feelings of heaviness or darkness feel like such an inconvenience. The reality is that they do happen. I’ve worked closely with my family doctor since July in attempt to even things out a bit. And I refuse to be ashamed of that. The good Lord gave us doctors and medicine for a reason. (Speaking also as a diabetic who relies on modern medicine daily, and now also my “happy pills”.)

My point in all of that was to say simply that with this has also come a dry season, so they say. My ability in my quiet time to connect with God has taken a hit. Partly due to my own business, and also in part to things I’m working out, or at least attempting to work out.

Yet, even amidst all the tragedy, and brokenness, as we set up our Christmas tree one of my absolute favourite Christmas songs came on. And cue the reminder that God is so near, and an idea of the God moments I’ve had over these last six months. Unexpected, but usually at just the right time.

Come Thou long awaited one
In the fullness of Your Love
Loose this heart bound up by shame
And I will never be the same

So here I wait in hope of You,
My soul's longing through and through
Dayspring from on high be near
Daystar in my heart appear

Dark and cheerless is the morn
'Till Your love in me is born
Joyless is the evening sun
'till Emmanuel has come

Advent Hymn, Christy Nockels

So here I wait, in hope of You… Waiting in hope.

Waiting in hope as Christmas approaches, knowing our suffering, or losses are not in vain.

Waiting in hope as I continue to make my way through mental health and moving to a place of total thriving.

Waiting in hope, knowing the fullness of His love is here. Here and now.

Reminding myself what Christmas is - the season of hope. Emmanuel, here with us.

You know, I wish I had the answers. I wish I could reverse time and bring people back, protecting not just myself from tragedy, but others as well. I also wish I had the ability to always say the right things at all times. But these are just wishes.

Hope though, is real. Hoping for comfort in times of brokenness, that is real. Hoping for resolution when things seem to be too tangled up, that’s possible. Hoping for the ability to celebrate in times of sadness, that is possible.

There’s a part of me that wants to cling to the shadows of bitterness I feel in light of it all. Just flip a giant bird to everyone and everything. You know, Merry Friggin’ Christmas. Whoop-de-do, the holidays are here. Like why even bother?

Jesus. Hope. The miracle of Christmas. The real reason for the season. (As tacky as that line has become.)

To begin to try and understand why things happen the way they do is impossible. What is possible is knowing the goodness of God. That He never is one to bring us harm or sorrow. He may allow them, which is where we often get caught up. But He is not the cause.

Let me say that again: God is not the reason for your suffering or your loss, nor is it His “will”.

The reason I say this so boldly is because of redemption; what happens in light of complete tragedy. It’s how God shows off. What was meant for evil, what was meant to tear us away from the loving arms of the Father is actually the thing that can take us closer - if we allow it. Because, let me shout it from the rooftops: He is good, His plans for us are good, and He takes what seems unredeemable and turns it into melodies of grace, of compassion, of hope and of redemption.

Our processes of anger, bitterness and disappointment are all normal too. Let that also be stated. But God is never angry nor disappointed in us when we feel this way. Nor is He intimidated by the time it takes to process through.

I don’t know what this time of the year brings up for you. I do know a large part of my community has been impacted by a great loss that has happened. And there really are no words.

But here are mine.

More importantly, here is our promise: To have hope in the face of impossibility, to have joy in the wake of sadness, and to witness first hand God with us, Emmanuel. And also to not feel any of those either. Or even if in our sorrow we don’t want to feel those. Our greatest promise is that through it all, He is with us. He is with us in the darkness as we feel we are barely holding on. He is with us when we have no answers

Jesus has the final word and this story is not over.

So, from my heart to yours, here is to the grace in every moment to feel what we feel. But here is also to God filling our broken spaces with gold, making us stronger than before.

Through His grace may our eyes be opened to the things unseen; the love and hope happening beyond what we can even begin to fathom. The literal thread of grace tying us all closer to Him.