Reason in My Season
A significant part of my trauma, and some of the more cruel lies and manipulation I experienced in my marriage, happened on Christmas. For a few years, I avoided Christmas carols, movies, holiday functions outside of an intimate family setting, and commercialized stores. I was remembering a particular Christmas this week. Reflecting on and having so much compassion for younger me, as I battled the good fight to choose the reason for the season.
This particular Christmas morning, I was alone, sitting on the living room floor with a cup of coffee, my sweet girl nestled on the couch, and staring at a blank journal page. I was six months post the first disclosure, and believed my then husband was spending the holiday in the city where he had business travel. I told him not to come home. I was weeks away from our separation, and our marital home felt utterly bleak. There were no decorations. There was no one to share breakfast with over presents. There was no pending meal prep for family visiting that day. Just a blank journal page, and my bible beside it.
I casually flipped open my bible that morning, in full doubt of where God could possibly take my darkness, and landed on Luke 1:46. Mary’s Song of Praise. I had heard this scripture just a few weeks prior on the series, The Chosen. It was an incredibly powerful scene as the Mother Mary, in all her youthfulness, uncertainty, and fears, undoubtedly overwhelmed in the responsibility of her testimony, gracefully spoke this prayer of praise. “My Soul Magnifies the Lord…” she says. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior…for he who is mighty has done great things for me…”. I glanced up briefly at my surroundings, my circumstances, the empty home that was once a home and now carried so much brokenness. And my gaze returned to the blank journal page. And I thought of Mary. A woman who could have been engulfed by her testimony, the heaviness of what was being asked of her, and was instead, rejoicing in God.
Dear partner. Our holidays will look inevitably different for a little while; or perhaps a long while. There were a few years, while fighting demons that no one knew, as I passed out dessert and refilled wine glasses, that I needed to find a reason to survive my season. I invited friends or acquaintances to Christmas dinner that had no family to speak of. I purchased gifts for children who wouldn’t have a Christmas morning otherwise. I sat in a pew for Christmas Eve service and distracted my tears by biting my lower lip and watching the clock count down. And it was that Christmas morning where God met me, with not a mouth to feed or host, not a forgotten child to clothe or gift wrap for; it was there, dear partner, that God met me in all of my darkness, and gave me a spirit to rejoice. Alone. Uncertain. Questioning my own ability to carry a testimony that was unfolding beyond my control. Rejoicing.
Here is the journal entry I wrote that Christmas morning:
12/25/21
It has been a while…No doubt I allowed numbing and feelings of being paralyzed by raw emotion to take over this month. Or in quite a possessive way, they just simply found a broken and vulnerable body to take over. But I am back. And what a day to reach for God again.
I am alone and that was exactly what I wanted this year. No one to please or fill up, just me & this time and peace I am receiving from God. Nothing to hide behind or with, but to open my hands and receive God’s never-ending & abundant grace & peace. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior…”
God, you have been so good to me. In all of my weakness and emotions, you have been so good to me. The only light in my life. You continue to burn brightly in the midst of all the darkness. The narrow road I continue to walk trusting you, taking one step further; one daunting step further.
Thank you for filling me with the grace and ability to choose me and my needs. To be filled with this intimate time with you. For permission, to just be in your presence.
Faith is strengthened in our darkest moments. Fragmented moments that piece together to form a testimony that radiates, God is still good.
I didn’t need the darkness, dear partner. We do not need our circumstances to have a life of faith. But I am not certain I would have experienced the depth of where God’s love would reach for me, until I rejoiced in it. Until I rejoiced in the darkness. The uncertainty. The season.
I would never have a Christmas morning in that house, with the entirety of that family as I knew it, with my sweet girl, in the marriage or in that life ever again. But I would rejoice in the darkness. I would faithfully seek God, who continued to seek me.
