Someone recently commented that much of what I have been posting on Facebook and writing in my blogs has sounded like I am depressed. I have been thinking about that and it’s part of what led to what I am sharing today.
This is a challenging time of the year for many people. While many celebrate with family, shop for gifts, watch feel-good movies, and attend festive parties, others sit alone, thinking of what they have lost. Friends and family who have died. Jobs lost. Empty bank accounts. Ghosts of Christmases past. Shattered dreams. A host of other reminders of this broken world.
When I write, I often struggle to find a healthy balance between vulnerability and oversharing. I strive to be honest with those who read, but I want to avoid the trap of saying too much, leaning into victimhood, or treating social media like a therapy session.
On the flip side, I never want to come across like I have it all together or that life is all good. This has been my struggle for years, not just in social media, but real life as well. For a long time, I hid behind laughter and jokes, creating the impression that life was one big celebration and there wasn’t much wrong. In sermons and Bible classes I would share some struggles, but they weren’t the deepest, darkest ones. They were the ones that were “safe” to say in public.
I no longer want to live in that world. I want to live in a world where I expose my darkness, not to exploit it or gain attention, but rather to be honest about how difficult and painful life is and can be. In a world where we use filters to make pictures look even better and carefully crafted posts to create the best, most edited versions of ourselves, we need a little transparency.
This is a dark season for me. Today, December 22, is my mom’s birthday. December 5 is the day my dad died. January 1 is my dad’s birthday. In the midst of all of this sits Christmas, a holiday my father never liked and tolerated for the benefit of his one and only child, and later his grandson.
So Advent holds multiple layers of meaning for me. In a season of life where I have experienced more loss than I would wish on even my enemies, I struggle with sadness. I wrestle with pain. I fight against the darkness knocking on my door. But Advent reminds me to wait and wait expectantly.
This is not an expectant waiting where everything will suddenly be perfect or turn out just the way I would like.
I remember as a child I would get the J.C. Penney and Sears catalogs and circle what I wanted. Without fail, everything I circled would show up under the tree. And as much as I appreciate my parents buying me so many gifts each Christmas, I wish they had been better at teaching me about disappoiment.
You see, my parents each had their own darkness they were trying to conceal. They had demons they seldom if ever talked about. They did all they could to hide them from me, and Christmas was one of those times when they worked at it the hardest.
These last few years have allowed me to see the world differently. I have strived to live in the tension between darkness and light, the non-dualistic world where suffering, pain, and disappointment live at the same address as hope, love, joy, and peace. It has been one of the hardest things I have ever done, but it has helped me appreciate the coming of Jesus in a new way.
Advent reminds me to wait, not for everything to be perfect, but for light to enter darkness. To hope for a better tomorrow, even when today sucks. To love myself and others, even when I feel unloved. To find joy, even in the midst of sadness. To experience peace, even when life seems like a living hell.
So I wait. I wait expectantly. I do not sit back and wait, but rather I join with God in the work of making all things new.
I cry. I laugh.
I scream. I rejoice.
I suffer. I comfort.
I doubt. I believe.
I no longer try to conceal the darkness, and that has taken away much of its power. But darkness still is and always will be part of my journey. Whether shadows from the past or present suffering, darkness will continue to be my companion on this adventure called life. But as we travel through Advent towards Christmas, we remember that God is coming, not just in words, but in action. Not just in thought, but in body.
I find it fitting that my mom’s birthday is the first day after the winter solstice. It reminds me that even though darkness haunted her and was passed on to me, better days are coming and the light can be a little more present every day.
Breaking Into Peace 