WHEN CHRISTMAS DOESN’T FEEL “MERRY”

Did you know you can feel more than one feeling at once?

We are complex beings who can hold many emotions simultaneously.

Grief and gratitude. Joy and pain. Sorrow and excitement.

But sometimes we act as if emotions cancel each other out. We feel guilt for feeling pain at a baby shower when we long for a baby, for suppressing a sob at Christmas dinner because a loved one is missing. We seem to think that the happiness we find for one thing should fully suppress the heavier feelings that can also bubble up with the same experience.

The holidays can present this weird sort of emotional pressure. But often the celebrations are like annual markers of all that is no longer the same as the year before. They remind us of the people who aren’t here anymore or relationships that are now broken or changes in the health, capacity, and availability of others--or ourselves.

And there is grief in that.

And we hold that grief even as our hearts swell with other feelings, like joy over the first snowfall, gratitude for the ones still gathering, and hope as we dwell upon this same strange mix of emotion present 2,000 years ago–a baby born amidst Herod’s slaughter, a tiny Savior who would one day inexplicably suffer, a relieved new mother whose soul would be pierced time and time again.

We are complex beings reflecting our complex, multi-faceted Creator.

We feel all of it at once. The pain, the joy, the grief, the hope.

All a part of the amalgam which we call the human experience.

And all are welcome at His Christmas table.