The December Reckoning

I can't shake the melancholy this December. Life has cast its shadow over all the parties. It's not all somber, of course, but the moments of delight are framed by life as it really is--budget constraints, colleagues losing their jobs, family tension and even estrangement, the stress of year-end deadlines. Underneath it all are layers of memories because December has a way of piling on.

On December 10th, 1999, Daniel and I went to a routine ultrasound, excited to see our baby for the first time. We had told every living soul of our joy that we were expecting. What we weren't expecting was the absence of a heartbeat. The stillness in my womb chilled us that Christmas. The songs seemed hollow, offensive even. We grieved deeply.

Every December I think of that baby, our baby, no longer living.

On December 10th, 2002, Daniel and I arrived with our toddler in the Philippines. We had sold most of our worldly goods and said our goodbyes, intending to settle indefinitely among an ethnic group that needed to hear the good news about Jesus. We experienced Christmas as outsiders that year, observers to traditions and families and friendships not yet our own. It was a bleak month, that stretched us to capacity. Things didn't go as planned. We only stayed 28 months, far short of the decades we expected. We left without accomplishing what we intended to do. God seemed so silent.

Every December I think of the pain of leaving and starting over and leaving again.

On December 10th, 2019, InterVarsity Press released my book. Bearing God's Name is four years old now. It's been a joy to see these ideas catch people's imaginations around the world. My parents met us in Portland to celebrate. We didn't know it then, but it was our last Christmas together. The pandemic that ravaged the world and ruined Christmas in 2020 also managed to ruin Christmas in 2021. By 2022, the damage had been done; my parents were divorced.

And so I sit here this December, trying to embrace the season, but finding it complicated. December will never be what it was. The ornaments on our tree that recall happier seasons are tinged with the color of grief. It's not that I mind the tree or the lights, the concerts and the cookies. I welcome them all with open arms, as long as they don't force me to be glib. Life is far richer and more rewarding than I anticipated, but also far more painful.

December is the month that beckons us to take stock of our year, of our life. It's the reckoning of what we've done and who we've loved. We find out who our friends and family are and what we've lost along the way. Decorations mark time, evoking both nostalgia and change.

I don't know what this month holds for each of you, but I expect it's complicated.

A certain chair may be empty this year.

A certain song will bring you to tears.

A certain smell tugs your heart down memory lane.

This year I'm taking comfort in the gritty realities of Advent. Christ's birth followed a long season of agonized waiting in which life did not go as planned. As we await his return, is it any wonder that we bear both joy and sorrow, delight and pain? The hope that undergirds us is the same hope that carried the Israelites through their years of exile and sustained them under oppressive Roman rule. 

Christmas is not the story of an upwardly mobile businessman who crushed his sales targets and earned the Employee-of-the-Year Award. It's not the story of a rich girl who got everything on her Amazon wish list. It's not even the family in matching outfits with every hair in place for the annual photo.

Christmas is about a poor family on the margins under heavy taxation forced to travel at an inconvenient time. It's about the unlikely visitors who showed up to celebrate their son's birth and about their flight to Egypt in fear of their lives. If my community feels overshadowed or fraught with contradictions, we're well positioned to appreciate Christmas. It's not, and never was, picture perfect. 

December is a season to ponder the surprising work of God through an improbable cast of characters. It's a reckoning of sorts, a taking stock of what's what, a waiting for what comes next, and a gladness that none of it depends on me.