Darkness Interrupted
Darkness takes over this time of year. We wake up to dark. We gather for dinner in dark. Even with the hours in between, the cloudy skies over Western Pennsylvania have kept the sun mostly hidden for days and days. Even in daylight, the barren and colorless trees remind me of the deadness of it all. Winter.
This past Sunday evening, right when I thought I couldn’t take any more of the dampness, clouds, and too soon setting sun, light interrupted the gloominess of it all.
One of my kids needed me to pick him up from a friend’s. While driving over, I had a rare moment alone in the car- and out of curiosity I started listening to Lauren Daigle’s new Christmas album. And on that short sans passenger drive, while finding myself getting into the Christmas spirit, I suddenly noticed the beauty of the decorated homes and their outdoor lights. Bunches of tiny twinkling lights.
Since the little guys weren’t in the car to interrupt the moment, I actually got to thinking about what a significant and formidable impact those little flickering lights make against the backdrop of cloudy days and excessively long nights. As subtle as the lights can be, they interrupted the darkness and heaviness I often feel this time of year.
I also got to thinking (I’m always thinking) about this season and how against the backdrop of our Christmas carols, family traditions, and cultural expectations and Norman Rockwell myths- the darkness can feel even more suffocating. Instead of feeling insurmountable joy, we feel the deep throbbing pain of the somethings and the someones we are missing. We possess a heightened awareness of the broken places, the disappointments, the griefs. It can feel like too much.
It is too much. I spend a lot of time with hurting people. It’s what I do vocationally. So I am mindful that for some, this will be the first Christmas without a spouse- either because of death or divorce. For those who are estranged from loved ones, there’s no escaping the disconnect’s reality when others are happily celebrating with loved ones. The struggles of marriage, finances, life circumstances, addiction, and the things that make life hard feel a thousand times tougher this time of year.
Yet those lights- the ones strewn across bushes and outlining homes – unexpectedly interrupted my heaviness and reminded me that Jesus’ coming -Emmanuel, God with us – Jesus, the Light of the World – His penetrating our darkly thickened atmosphere and suffocating aches – is precisely the purpose of his arrival. A welcome, unexpected, and desperately needed interruption. A baby, a small flicker of light, shining brightly against the heavy backdrop of suffering and pain, loneliness and disconnection, poverty and grief.
All of this to remind you of what the lights reminded me: Don’t let the myths of this season minimize your pain. Instead, invite the small flickers of His shining light into the darkness. Hold your broken places as you would hold a candle’s unlit wick before a flame. Hold the candle of pain before him until you sense His light penetrating the darkness.
Remember, He came to us because we needed His light to be our way out. That hasn’t changed because our culture’s expectations of the Season have become so intense and out of whack.
Let the real and true Gift of Christmas be your experience, hope, and expectation this Christmas: His light for our darkness.
Merry Christmas,
Lanie
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