Struggle

When Advent Doesn’t Go As Expected

Leave a comment

This year marked a break in what had become a much-enjoyed activity. Let’s just say that things have not gone to plan this Advent. Work, life, and mental health intervened and overall weariness has lain me out of late. So, in short, I have not written anything past week 1 of Advent. That is not what I had planned. Advent writings have been such a balm for me these past two Christmases. They have been a light amidst all the rush and fuss and struggle, and it makes me rather sad that I just could not make it happen this year. Along with that, I haven’t planned any holiday activities for the family — no lights viewings, no Christkindlmarkt before the big day, nothing like that. I just have not had the wherewithal for anything like that, and that honestly makes part of my Christmas-loving heart very downcast and disappointed.

Here we are…less than a week away from Christmas…and I am deeply battling the sense of not-enough. Fighting the feeling that I am not doing enough, haven’t bought enough, haven’t decorated or celebrated enough. This feeling also wars with trying to ensure that needs are met as well as desires. In the midst of all this, I am doing my best to remind myself and others that what we are doing/have done is enough. What I am doing/have done is enough. A manger was enough for the dear babe who Himself was enough for Mary and Joseph, though I can guarantee that Advent did not go as planned for them either.

So, Dear Ones, if this Advent has not been what you expected or hoped, allow me to speak truth to your tender heart. It is enough. What you are doing is enough. You are enough. As we move towards the end of Advent and the beginning of Christmas, remember and hold close that a simple, faithful teenage girl was enough. A good Godly man was enough. A manger in a stable was enough. And you, Dear Heart, are enough. You are enough for Christmas.

~

‘Maybe Christmas,’ he thought, ‘doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more!’ 

Christmas Day is in our grasp, as long as we have hands to clasp! Christmas Day will always be, just as long, as we have we! Welcome Christmas while we stand, heart to heart, and hand in hand!”

~ Dr. Seuss

Advertisement

The Comfort Struggle

2 Comments

I have been thinking lately — why do I sometimes struggle with being comforted? Why does it feel nigh impossible to just sink into the gentleness of others and let myself fall apart if needed? I have been going through a difficult (even scary) situation of late, but I have been given overwhelming support in it, thank God. However, as I said to my husband the other night, I still struggle to be comforted by that support. I feel it. I acknowledge and am grateful for it. But I feel as though something is missing in my reaction to said comfort.

Why am I not moved to relieved tears by the succor that is being offered to and in defense of me? Why do I feel as though I recognize and appreciate this comfort on a cerebral level but it hasn’t pierced my heart? I feel somewhat heart-numb, like the comfort can come to the moat around my soul’s castle and call out its support and furtherance, but it cannot enter the inner sanctum and be welcomed there. Amidst all the comfort, I still feel alone, even though logically I know that I am not.

I never though that I would struggle with being comforted of all things, with knowing that I am loved and championed. My darling husband gently suggested that maybe the comfort I have received, while good, is not necessarily the comfort I am needing. But I do not know how to reconcile that. I do not know what comfort I do need, how I need to be poured into, how my heart needs to be ministered to. And that hurts as well: being so disconnected from myself (or at least feeling so) that I do not know what it is that would make me feel that comfort down into my bones.

If you are feeling this, too, in whatever moment you are currently standing in, I’m sorry. I don’t have an answer or a fix. But I can tell you that you are not alone in it.

Struggling at the End

2 Comments

This is scary but I will write it anyway.

For the whole of this summer, I have struggled.

I have struggled to grieve.

I have struggled to process.

I have struggled to write.

I don’t like struggling. I am sure you do not either. It is hard, it hurts, and answers are not forthcoming. I feel stuck, and that is definitely no fun. I have written. Pages. But when I look back at them, I cannot help but feel that they don’t actually say anything, that I am just babbling on paper. I have even asked myself,

“Am I even doing this right?”

Did you catch that? I was questioning whether or not I am grieving correctly. If you have been a Reader for long, then you know I am intimate friends (frenemies?) with uncertainty. I question myself on the regular and now I have found myself questioning if I am moving through my emotions, my grief, my disappointment, in the right way.

God bless for a husband who sometimes reads over my shoulder when I am scribbling madly. He reminded me not too long after I had scratched this down on during a worship service that there is no right way to grieve. No “right way” to process. Grief is hard, sometimes solitary, and often confusing work. I have seen death throughout my life but am honestly unsure as to how exactly I grieved in each case.

I have struggled all summer, it feels like. Struggled to rest, struggled to recover, struggled to enjoy. Now we are coming to the end, and I feel like I want to despair. I would love a do-over of this summer, but we are not given the benefit of time-travel, are we? I feel panicky as the summer days draw closer to an end, scrabbling to grasp the last of my free time before it disappears, and school with all of its responsibilities and stresses crowds in again. I do not want to carry this burden in August. But grief doesn’t exactly give us a timeline of operation, does it?

I do not have an answer for how to do all of this, I am sorry. All I know is that I am just trying every day and doing my best to give myself permission to feel hard feelings and to lean on my dear ones when I need it. To look for the light when it seems that there is none.

In this same vein and right on time, something unexpected happened yesterday. A dear friend sent me a beautiful Twitter thread by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg discussing Mr. Fred Rogers, his beliefs, and how he manifested those beliefs and ministry throughout his life and tenure on television. She discussed how he directly addressed some of the big issues and questions of the time, putting them into words and actions that children and adults alike could understand, demonstrating his love and care for all people who walk this mortal coil. Touched and inspired by the post, I retweeted it on my own Twitter page and then, seized by a heart-nudge, I screenshot every page of the thread, making sure I got everything, including Rabbi Ruttenberg’s name, and then posted the photos on this blog’s FB page, making sure to tag the original thread, as well as Rabbi Ruttenberg’s public FB page so that everyone who saw it could explore this wonderful woman of God’s posts and encouragements. These were not and are not my words, BUT I am privileged to be able to share them. Up to this point (2:49pm on 7/23/19), my post of the thread has had 3.4 thousand shares, and, in all its journeying, has reached over 139,600 people. I am agog at this, dear friends! Simply agog. But my aforementioned dear husband made a very poignant point.

“Is that really that surprising? People are looking for grace and goodness in their lives.”

I know that he is right, and I know that, for many of us, Mr. Rogers and his work were a formative influence in the development of that same grace and goodness, empathy and encouragement, in our lives. What I posted in that thread are not my words but those of a woman wise in life and faith who shares her heart, mind, and conviction with the world, in the hopes of “cultivating empathy, allowing for curiosity, and loving our neighbor has ourselves”. Those words are reaching, encouraging, and inspiring others beyond what I ever thought possible, and it’s amazing to watch.

I am so glad that I was able to share your words, Rabbi Ruttenberg, and thank you for the hope that they have given to this struggling woman. Thank you for reminding me that it’s okay to have hard feelings, and it’s even okay to struggle for a time.