the best gift {every difficult day of the year}
I weave my way through aisles, casually lifting trinkets in one hand, weighing their merit as stocking stuffers against the cost, yellow-highlighted on white stickers. We left home early to avoid the rush, the traffic, and scurried huddled through the icy mist to gather our gifts. We chuckle, in a jovial but deeply horrified, self-convicted way, about the number of retail items manufactured just for Christmas. Our longing for twinkling memories, for tangible abundance, for sentiment we hold in our hands, has inspired an industry.
I laugh over a pen that has a speaker attached to the top. Push a button, and a variety of recorded voices declare sarcastic and bold refusal. I find this funny and trivial in a way that frames escape from so many challenging and more meaningful realities, not to mention that the little item makes light of a pervasive feeling—the no, not that of our living. So much of the time, we all wish we could simply but firmly refuse the difficulty, the responsibility, the things we breathe through.
My phone chimes, an email from Zoe. Riley is upset and her stomach still hurts. 🙁 She is really upset. I close my eyes, briefly. Just simply: Please. I need a break this week, a rest, a carved out space for replenishing and refocus.
I read the message aloud to my mom. I feel Riley’s tears. She cries silently, without a wail, and sadness blurs her voice when she tries to talk.
“Do you think we should go home?” Mom says. The day before, something Riley had eaten caused her distress—gas pain that went unabated through the early evening. I assured Riley that most of this would likely dissipate overnight, but clearly it had not yet disappeared entirely.
“I don’t know.” I sigh, suddenly weighted by one of those realities I would like to simply refuse. Sometimes I don’t know if Riley’s pain is real or anxiety-induced. Anxiety is a problem for many people with autism and also can be a higher-risk issue for those with epilepsy. In the last year, it has become a more significant challenge for Riley. I’ve watched my daughter have panic attacks in sensory-heavy situations, over studying for tests (and the worry that she will fail them), and most recently, over the potential that she will gag or feel nauseous. She developed the latter fear one day when she tried to take her anti-seizure pills all at once and gagged, and in recent months, this particular anxiety has developed further into nausea and leg tremors. Or at least, that’s what we believe. Riley struggles to explain how she feels. Some of these symptoms could additionally be side-effects to her medication, something we’re puzzling over and strategically working on with the help of Riley’s neurologist. Riley has always enjoyed food, but this anxiety has robbed her of the simple joy she once found in eating. These days, any suggestion of digestive issues, the possibility of an unusual texture or flavor, or even just the anticipation of a restaurant meal (another complicated shade of this fear that developed once when an anxiety attack came on at a restaurant) can paralyze Riley and leave her in tears, unable to eat. I turn all of this over in my mind, unsure about the nature of today’s symptoms. I hurt for my daughter. I want to relieve her fear, to be her comforter.
Yesterday, Riley’s tears came with only a few clues, words melted into sobs: I don’t want to have to throw up. I’m afraid I will feel bad on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Her fears leave me tender. Neither of these worries has particular foundation in Riley’s current situation, but both make her experiences worse in every aspect. She has repeated both of these sentiments multiple times in the last day. It occurs to me that she only reiterates feelings we all share: I don’t want to be sick. And please, not at Christmas. We feel our loss and difficulty still more deeply on these hallowed days. The reality of our suffering imposes on our longing for joy and celebration. No, not now. Not now.
This week, we pray deeply over Family struggling through grave conditions in the hospital, over friends facing loss, over loved ones grieving, over chronic illness, over the reality of hunger and pervasive need in our world. We feel more tender now than at any other time over the reality that suffering tarnishes living. More than once, I have said, “This would be hard at any time, but at Christmas…” Christmas comes, and for many, it will be as difficult as every other day or more difficult still for the expectation that the holiday should glint with tinsel, that it should come ornamented and abundant. I’ve seen so many movies this season about losing and rediscovering the spirit of Christmas, and if they offer a little taste of the truth, perhaps this is the reason: Life hurts, even at Christmas.
I type a message back to Zoe: Tell her to lay down and cover herself up with a blanket. She does not need to be afraid to eat. We have a little more shopping to do, but we’ll be home soon. And then we stop our browsing, focused on the list-items. I pray, right there in the store, watching the way florescent light pools on the glossy tile floor. I reach for the substance of my need. Father, grant me wisdom. Bring her relief.
But as I walk, it’s, Why now, why at Christmas?
My phone chimes. Zoe: I think she’s a little better than she was yesterday. 🙁 That frown makes me give thanks. It is sisterly concern and doesn’t reflect the substance of the sentence. Thank you, Lord, that they love each other. And there it is: the Light glinting. Zoe’s love covers over her sister’s trembling legs before I am there to still them with my hand. Love–the evidence of God with us—like a blanket, like a body sacrificially stretched right over the cracks in this place.
Christ did not come to a twinkling time nor to a people satisfied and welcoming. He came to desperate need, to a world hungry, to a people lost and hurting, and He himself came humbly. When all else feels lost and hopeless, He comes. So why should we not more deeply feel the ache of needing Him at Christmas? Shouldn’t our Advent gnaw hungry? On those living in a land of deep darkness (Isaiah 9:2)—those living in the land of the shadow of death (Matthew 4:16)—a light has dawned. Into the no, not this of our living, He comes. And no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Oh to be hungry enough to wait upon Him, to long for Him, always.
It is the recognition that life is hard, that we need, even at Christmas, that moves us to open our eyes and look for Him shining, that compels us to travel far to seek Him (Matthew 2), that centers our hearts on waiting for Him (Luke 2:22-40). So what better a time than Christmas to even more tenderly feel the bruised truth that we reach needy for the One who is our light and the measure of our abundance, the Love that cements together our cracks and fills up our emptiness? In Him, this too becomes our gift. Into such need and under such shadow as ours, a great Light dawns. He shines. He is the ornamenting of the holiday, the Love-rich covering that reclothes us (Gal. 3:27). He is the carved out space in which we rest, the warmth we feel, the grace-glittering worth savoring. He is the yes of God. And as His ambassadors, we live to be like Him, to be the evidence that He has come.
And so I hear, walking up the aisle to the check-out, the answer to our deep prayers for relief, the reply to our struggling tears, the clear response to my pleading please. This is the gift we need to gather:
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).
