When I was a child, the week before Christmas seemed to last longer than the rest of the weeks of the year combined. My anticipation for the wonder of Christmas Eve and the joy of Christmas morning grew tortuous in the final push to that church candlelight service every December 24th. Despite the years that have passed, I have not yet lost that sense of awe and excitement each Advent season brings.
Last Christmas was unimaginably hard; it was the first one after my mother passed away from pancreatic cancer. I honestly don't remember very much of last year's Christmas season at all.
This year, though, I find myself once again softly anticipating the joy that is to come. My family and I will gather and celebrate love. Celebrate each other and wonder at ourselves: We are getting through. Somehow, in spite of it all, we are getting through.
Isn't that the point of this season of waiting? For those of us who believe even only a seed of the story of the Christ child, of God Almighty incarnated in the body of a helpless, backwater-born infant, isn't that the point of our faith? Despite it all, Love makes a way.
Despite sickness and death,
Despite corruption and betrayal,
Despite oppression and abuse,
Love makes a way.
Love laughs when Evil itself attacks with all its forces;
She fastens shut its lion's mouth,
Prepares a feast--
And Evil itself can only watch helplessly
As Love fêtes and feeds her beloved.
It's been a long and difficult road to walk these past few years, for all of us in all sorts of different ways. No one escapes life unscathed, that I know for sure. The thief which has come to steal, to kill, to destroy--that robber baron we call Loss--surely will leave its mark on us all.
But it's occurred to me lately that if Loss can scar, surely Love can leave her mark too. Only instead of painful wounds, Love leaves peace, joy, and healing in her wake. Whatever faith, creed, or moral compass we may follow, Love (in all her manifestations) moves hearts and connects people and rejoices at the beauty that, even despite everything, still graces the world.
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