There was a time during my first miscarriage that I felt everything crashing, salt in wounds everywhere, and then my kitchen literally crashed with the plumbing bursting, dishwasher falling out, and kitchen drawer breaking simultaneously, one kitchen the picture of my world. I laid on the kitchen floor and yelled at God: Isn’t it enough Lord? Have you not hurt me enough?
There was another time on our adoption journey, that evil seemed to be winning, and we were told our daughter would be reunited with her still-testing-positive-for-drugs bio family. I drove banging the steering wheel and crying it bitterly to God: I have to see You. If I don’t see Your hand… Oh God I have to see you.
Years later here I am, and I’m on the kitchen floor again, I’m banging the steering wheel again, I’m feeling the darkness win again and God, if I don’t see Your hand I’m scared to death what’s going to happen.
I’m hanging on to God’s heels dragging on the floor while it seems He’s walking away.
I’m kicking and screaming and begging Him, Lord give me some light because right now the light is darkness and God how great is the darkness.
I hate driving over bridges. They terrify me, the letting go of what was, what was known and what was sure, and being suspended midair, mid-nothing, waiting to land. I’ve learned I can’t look around, can’t see the view, can’t look back, can’t worry about what’s ahead. I have to just stare at what’s coming in front of me, what I need to see to continue, and block the rest out.
Life is like a bridge right now, I’m having to let go of what’s behind, what I’ve known, and let myself be suspended in the in-between, not knowing where I’ll land, not looking at what’s gone, not looking at how far I could fall.
And the fear whelms up like it does like when I drive over those bridges, the panic of where I am, and how I got here.
I remind myself- I need to just look at what’s coming right in front of me.
But I don’t even know what exactly that is.
It’s Christmas.
It’s Christmas and it’s in boxes, and the decorations are mostly packed, and the few lights I pulled out to string on the front porch have been slowly going out, day by day, darker and darker, until just a few shine.
And those dying lights are like that broken kitchen, like a picture of my world. The days are filled with closing down our life here, goodbyes with community, treasures in boxes sealed up. Lights going out. My heart feeling dimmer.
And I hear the now familiar sound of the tape pulling over boxes, closing them shut, an echo of doors closing, reminders of life wheels coming off.
I find myself pulling into a graveyard, but not just any graveyard. The one we always came to, after heartbreaking doctors appointments. It was right on the way home from the hospital, and gave us a place to stop and be quiet and sad before getting back home to the pace of life.
I find myself by the statue of Christ and His disciples, find myself face down on the rock ground, sobbing deep cries of agony of all the endless heartache that was here. We moved here hoping to put down permanent roots, begin a season of settled, establish life. But we only made it a few months before our first miscarriage tainted our home with death and devastation, and the hits just seemed to keep coming over the years here. And here I am almost 5 years later with more devastation ending this chapter and a mountain of grief I can’t burry.
So I lay on the rock ground and cry it to Him, grieve my family’s journey here. I sob and mourn my two babies lost with no grave, mourn my fertility gone, the mental health scars left, the lost jobs, the dead ends, the deep wounds, the deep hurt, and utter lack of closure of a season with so many sad endings.
A few weeks ago, I’m sitting, sobbing, watching my husband go through one of his most painful experiences. And one of my closest friends comes and sits by me, cries with me, stays by me. She’s the same friend who jumped into the ambulance with me and it’s like she’s doing it again, jumping into the pain with me, staying with me in my heartache, reminding me of the beauty of Christ’s community in suffering.
And I remember her saying it, those words that brought me such comfort a few years ago: “You think it’s never gonna end, but guess what, it will.” And I need to hear them again, replay them again, because I feel like I could give up on hoping for reprieve again.
I’m trying to feel Christmas, trying to experience it, and I panic thinking it’s missed this year. This Christmas reeks of chaos and closed doors. It feels far from warm and comfortable and cozy. The house is mostly packed up and in utter mayhem. Our days are filled with projects and packing and hard goodbyes and scrambling to figure out next steps. The sadness in me pushes back, says it’s not supposed to be like this: these days should be filled with crafts and cookies and movies and music. How can this be Christmas?
I’ve yet to experience a suffering that He does not experience worse than me.
And in my sadness He comes again, points me to His birth, points me to that first Christmas. Displaced? Check. Chaos? Check. Plans upended? Check.
That day wasn’t cozy, wasn’t organized, wasn’t all of the things we have tacked on to Christmas.
I’ve yet to experience a suffering that He does not experience worse than me.
As I look to that first Christmas, and see my current one- see the chaos, see the unpreparedness, see the loneliness- these things I see, instead of being enemies of Christmas, could they actually be giving me the most accurate Christmas yet?
This is how He came. And isn’t this why He came?
Our dead endings, our hurt, our desperation and devastation- didn’t He come in this and for this?
I see Him after I yelled at Him on the kitchen floor, after I beseeched Him at the steering wheel- He always came through. Always showed up, always stayed. And I know He will again. And I remember my bridge-driving lesson, to not look around, not look back, not worry about what’s ahead. I have to just stare at what’s coming in front of me, what I need to see to continue, and that isn’t exact answers- it’s a Person. He will be there, and He is what I need to see to continue. And then I can block the rest out.
He came as the Bridge for our bridge seasons, to remind us we are always held and always whole. And when the boxes aren’t checked and we find ourselves at Christmastime buried in chaos and heartache and betrayal and sickness and death, we can look to the one Who suffered a broken Christmas day first.
And so we find relief in the actual requirements of Christmas.
Because they are all boxes He has already checked.