Sometimes it hits you. Like a boulder to the stomach, like a rush of cold air, like a feather gently on your cheek….it gets you.
Grief sneaks up on you in the most unlikely places. One moment you can go from being dressed as an angel sharing the good news to children with eyes filled with wonder, to bawling in the back corner watching your tears hit the dirt floor.
“Silent night, holy night….”
I start signing along. At first, merrily with all the Christmas Spirit….and then is hits me. This time, it came like a light feather gently falling on my cheek. The memories, the moments start coming to the forefront of my mind, one sweet memory at a time. Growing up, it was a family tradition to go to the Christmas Eve service at my Grandparents church. We’d all line up in the wooden pews, shoulder to shoulder, dressed in our Christmas best, giggling with youthful wonder. We would sit in the top balcony, if we had a choice, it was the best view in the house. The sermon would start as we’d doodle on our church program, anxiously awaiting for when it was time to pass out the candles.
My favorite memories are the ones where both my brothers are beside me. They’d tease me squeeze me and make me yell for mom…but when the candles came out it was like the whole world paused.
“All is calm, all is bright…..”
It was in those moments that little girl JamieLee started to understand what God’s peace was. A peace that makes everything else stand still.
As the years passed, the people in the pews changed.
The Christmas after my brother Kyle died, I remember sitting in the pew, not so merrily…
“Glories stream from Heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing alleluia…”
The candles passed out, I stared at the flame. What is Kyle doing in Heaven? I could feel the warmth of the glow, I could feel the Peace trying to rise up inside me.
A few years after that, Grandpa went too.
“Sleep in Heavenly peace, oh…”
We kept going to Christmas service. We held on as a family, life doesn't stop even though your world does.
In the barn as I was singing…Grandma’s smile comes to mind now. Two Christmas’ without her here. No more Christmas’ in the church pew…
The people in the pews change, the pews change, but their love never leave us. Every time I sing, every time I stare at the flame, they are with me. I felt their love that night in the barn. I allowed myself to let the tears come, where we are broken is where the Light gets in.
We are human, created for love and for relationships. When what you are created for gets stripped from your very grasp….it is going to hurt.
But what is the most beautiful thing?
“Holy infant so tender and mild…”
The little babe. The infant in the manger, Lord at thy birth.
He was the same God in the manger, He is the same God now. The very meaning of love, the only reason there is love…coming down to Earth to set us free.
You can’t have love without pain.
Christ showed us that.
But the pain should not for one moment keep us from the love.
Christ showed us that, too.
As I cried in the back of the barn….I closed my eyes and let myself feel both sides—love and pain. How is it that a little babe born in a manger came to rescue us?
Only Love.