'Tis the Season

Christmas has alwasy been my favorite time of year. Joy fills the air and anticipation runs wild. The tree is always the best part! For as long as I can remember, I've gone out into a tree lot, hunted for the perfect green bush, crookedly sawed it down, and gotten all sappy hauling it back to the car. We've pulled out the string and roped the sucker down so it'd survive the ride home and endured the wind along the way. When arriving home, my excitement built as we cut the ropes, rolled it off the top of the car, and drug it into the house. Of course, there has always been quite a needled trail that needs to be vacuumed.

Once inside, the propping and straightening provoked tilt wars and blind adjustments. Who's going to hold the tree, who will adjust it, who's going to get all painted with tree sugar holding the base? It's quite entertaining really. And then, everyone gets to dig in to the decorations box as the lights go up to design this year's tree.

But this year, everything is different. I find myself swallowing hard and sucking in tears. The snow has finally come, something we wait for every year, but instead of sharing it with our whole family, we get to gaze into the whiteness and know that this would have been her first snow.

What would she have loved? How would I have bundled her up? How fun it would have been to see her as a "Christmas Story" puffball unable to even wiggle. Her nose would have been cutely red, and we could have dressed her up all fancy for Christmas Eve service. We would have gotten comments like "Isn't she just so cute?" and "How old is she now?"

Instead, I gaze at our treeless living room, vacant of decor. The bills from labor are just catching us and the joy of the season has quite a different feel. I still love Christmas and the time of year, but life is just . . . different.

Being in this position is very unique. Watching pregnant women walk around and wondering what normal should be like right now is quite soul-squeezing. Everyone else can live in happy, normal land, and we get to push through trusting in God's timing and childlessness. Christmas would have been so different and fun this year! Arie would have grown to love our traditions and eventually busted out of the puff-ball jumper in to, most likely, sledding, snowboarding, and fox-and-hound hunts through the snow.

Instead, we have so much going on, including two weddings--Mike's brother's, and a very good friend's, the mass chaos of a whole family Christmas, and two separate drives up to home and back. It's going to be crazy. Our pain and loss all must be put aside for the joy of our family and friends. We are so excited for both of them and seeing family.

It's so foreign to live in two different worlds. The depth of painful loss versus the excitement of new life. Wow what an oxymoron!

So 'tis the season for hectiness and joy. Someday soon, I'll be able to approach holidays with many less tears, and much more hope.

Thank goodness we have a God who has the volume to hold the beaches in his hand, and the tenderness to hold our tears.