It’s 10 short days until Christmas 2020, during the most upside-down, twisted, and isolated holiday season that most of us have ever experienced.
- We’re all a bit weary.
- Kind of melancholy.
- All up in our heads.
- Feeling all the feels.
- Or feeling nothing at all, then feeling guilty about feeling nothing.
Holidays have traditionally, and for the most part joyfully, centered on the idea of GATHERING:
- Trading gifts and food with family and friends!
- Church celebrations!
- School Christmas programs!
- Community festivals and concerts!
- Neighborhood caroling!
- Shopping in crowded malls!
But this year, that’s all changed.
Thanks, 2020…
The things that used to fill us up and create festive experiences in the present, as well as beloved memories of the past – we aren’t able to do those things this year.
At least not the way we are accustomed to.
Or the way we want to.
Dang it.
Humans don’t like to be told what to do (at least American humans in the 21st century don’t), and so the fact that we’ve been told we CAN’T do these things this year makes us want to do them even more.
It’s an interesting inconsistency, because most of us – myself for sure – tend to overcommit and over-do during the holidays.
We WANT a slower, more enjoyable experience, right?
RIGHT??
How many times have you wished that there wasn’t SO MUCH TO DO every November and December? I wish that almost every year, and promise myself to simplify the following holiday season, but then I find myself over-committed and overwhelmed.
Again.
Another tendency humans have is to create such high expectations of ourselves and those around us during the holidays that we make ourselves – and everyone else – miserable. We often have an expectation of “how Christmas should BE” in our perfect, Norman Rockwell world, and then when something goes “wrong” – and things will always go wrong…
- Little Susie doesn’t seem happy ENOUGH with her gifts!
- The kids came down the stairs before I got the PERFECT PICTURE of their joy and surprise at seeing all the gifts under the tree!
- Uncle Joe and Aunt Beulah were LATE TO CHRISTMAS BRUNCH!
… and the day is ruined (in our minds and attitude).
There’s something wrong with that picture.
We know we could make things simpler, more joyful, less stressful.
But we generally don’t.
Another human tendency is to not slow down and simplify unless we are forced to – by illness or extreme weather or power failures or highway closures or something that interrupts our flow.
But.
Enter 2020… the year that just keeps on giving us things we never asked for.
This year, microscopic particles that we can’t even see without a microscope have brought us to our knees.
And consequently, not just ME, but the WHOLE WORLD, has been forced to stop and take a breath.
A pretty LONG breath.
A not-quite-sure-when-we-can-let-it-out kind of long breath.
We’ve had to STOP, and then go reallllly slowlllly.
Just what we’ve wanted!
Right?
RIGHT??
No?
**Here comes another of our human tendencies**
Humans are quick to complain.
No, really. We are.
So even though we may have secretly longed for this slower pace and simpler season, we can still find ourselves complaining.
Except now it’s not about being too busy and overwhelmed and exhausted and disappointed about how it didn’t all go as expected.
No, now we’re complaining about all the things we’ve been told we can’t do this year.
And we want to do them.
All of them.
We aren’t so different from the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, complaining about how life was better in Egyptian slavery, because “at least we had food there”! And the “water wasn’t so bitter”!
God knew they needed food. So He gave them manna. Every day. Plenty of it.
Then they complained about the manna…
We DO tend to complain, even when we get what we want and/or need.
But just because we have these tendencies, doesn’t mean we can’t overcome them.
The point of today’s post isn’t to beat us all up because of our human tendencies; it’s to encourage us to choose joy instead.
To be more than our human tendencies.
The Christmas season is all about JOY – the joy that the birth of Jesus brings to the world, the joy we share with others as we celebrate and exchange greetings and gifts, the joy we experience as we sing and smile and appreciate the gifts all around us.
JOY!
2020 has given us a lot of sadness, change, grief, loss, pain.
But, it has also given us a GIFT.
I want to encourage you to appreciate the gift of this PAUSE, see this BLESSING of slowing down.
Stop fighting it, if you are fighting this enforced slowness.
Let go of the guilt and anger you may feel at not being allowed/able to do “all the things” this year.
This season, even in 2020, is a gift.
Don’t waste your gift being angry because you didn’t ask to receive it.
Let me say that again.
Don’t waste your gift being angry because you didn’t ask to receive it.
It is possible to shift your gaze from what is WRONG with this holiday season, and instead concentrate on what is RIGHT about it.
You – and I – can choose to be thankful for an enforced whittling down of “all the things”.
We are used to life being FAST and FULL and COMPLICATED; not SLOW and SIMPLE.
That’s why this year feels awkward or wrong or like our rights are being denied us, somehow.
It’s because we aren’t used to this way of being.
FOMO really is a thing; that panicky feeling of the “Fear of Missing Out”.
But I happen to think JOMO is a better idea: the “Joy of Missing Out”.
The Joy Of Missing Out happens when you get to a place emotionally where you can appreciate NOT doing all the things. When you can say “no, I don’t think I’ll do that this year” and feel full and peaceful about the decision, instead of guilty and regretful.
As I get older, I do take joy in NOT doing all the things, in giving myself permission to use my time and attention more intentionally on what is important to me and my family.
Have you ever wondered about sleep?
Why do we sleep?
Do you ever wonder what’s happening in our bodies while we sleep?
If you don’t know the answers to those questions, you’re in good company.
The best scientists in the world still don’t fully understand just WHY we sleep or HOW it works or WHAT exactly it accomplishes.
But the God who created us does know. He knows we need sleep. He knows how it works, what it does.
He also knows us so well that he understands we won’t slow down unless our bodies or something outside ourselves forces us to. So He built the need to sleep, our body’s DEMAND to sleep, into the way our bodies work.
He gives us what we need, because He loves us.
Sometimes it may take 40 years of desert wandering (Israelites) or 3 days of being blinded (Paul) or the better part of a year of A PANDEMIC and lock down (you and me) to get our attention and make us slow down.
In many ways, 2020 has been a chaotic reset.
A hot mess of rearranging our world and our priorities into something, perhaps, BETTER.
But even gifts don’t open themselves.
You have to be intentional to find out what good is wrapped up in what you’ve been handed.
Gifts don’t open themselves.
You have to be intentional to open and enjoy a gift.
We can choose to use this time that we’ve been gifted during this unusual holiday pandemic season to focus on what we CAN do, instead of what we CAN’T.
There’s no denying – it IS hard to not be able to be with loved ones the way we’d like to this year.
We miss them.
I miss them.
And there is, has been, and will be real sadness, upheaval, and grief at the tragic and life-altering losses people have experienced this year.
I see you. My heart hurts with yours.
I want it to be over, too.
But here we are. December 2020. Christmas.
And it is what it is.
So, we have choices to make.
I find great hope and encouragement in scripture. Maybe you do, too.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 helps me with perspective when hard times hit. Here’s what Paul said to the new, young church in Thessalonica, after they had been strong in their faith in the face of persecution (REAL persecution):
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.“
We don’t have to be thankful FOR all circumstances (thank God for that!), but we can choose to be thankful IN all circumstances. Thankful for the gifts that ARE PRESENT, no matter what’s going on around us.
Be intentional with your seeking of joy.
We can find the blessings of what we DO have, what we CAN do, how we CAN bless others and remind them and ourselves of our good and loving and patient and redemptive God, who sent Jesus, as a tiny baby, the most unexpected and confusing and underwhelming – but genious! – way to come into this world and save us.
It wasn’t what we EXPECTED, but it was what we NEEDED.
Take a sec and read Psalm 46.
“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.[c]
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields[d] with fire.
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
11 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Did you catch that?
“Be still and know that I am God”
As we head into the final few days before Christmas 2020, look for the joy, for the good that this unexpected, unrequested gift brings.
It’s right there.
Know that you – I – can still bring HOPE and JOY this season, to others and to ourselves.
Slow down and SEE the God who is with us, Immanuel, no matter what.
No matter what.
Peripheral Wisdom 