Happy New Year!

How is Christmas over so soon? Where did Advent go?

I intended to update the blog during Advent with little snapshots of what went on, but…

The whole family came down with a cold the Friday of the second week of Advent and mine lingered through Christmas and into the beginning of the Christmas season. It wiped me out. I either cancelled everything on our calendar or things were cancelled for me (because everyone else was sick, too!). We laid low, staying home and taking it easy for the two weeks leading up to Christmas.

Between the cold and the already low energy from this pregnancy we did maybe a third of what I’d hoped to do. I kept calling it the haphazard Christmas. Decorations, plans, outfits, everything was kind of tossed together during manufactured bursts of energy the required a good day (or two or three) of rest afterward. We didn’t even go look at lights! How did we not do that? That’s one of those activities that kind of must be done before Christmas, because most houses take them down pretty soon after.

Honestly, it was a bit rough at times. That awful voice kept whispering, then speaking, the screaming, “you’re not doing enough! You’re missing opportunities! You’re not parenting right, or Christmasing right. You’re being a scrooge. You’re being lazy.” And there were days when I just couldn’t turn it off and tell it to get behind me.

That’s been the way of this pregnancy. I thought I could maintain a level of doing and being and activity that I had planned for and become accustomed to throughout the carrying of this fourth. I tried to muscle my way through the nausea and morning sickness. I tried to plan a way to mitigate symptoms, ignore symptoms, medicate symptoms. And guess what? I was sick as a dog for 14 weeks. My plans didn’t work. I spiraled into an arid place, a cloudy place, and an exhausted place. This heaviness settled in.

This second trimester has been better. At least I don’t feel sick anymore. The energy hasn’t returned fully as it had during the second trimesters I’ve experienced in the past. I have good days, but I’m still not used to every task sapping energy and strength. I’m still not used to chores and errands taking twice as long because I simply cannot move my body as agilely as before. You’d think I’d be used to it by now! This is the fourth go round!

Throughout the heaviness and dryness the Lord has remained faithful. There is not the exuberance, the joy, the life force I may have had in the past. It’s like a trapdoor opened in my soul and I’m to go deeper and deeper, to open more and more and wait, like an Advent, wait for the light. If the soul is more deeply opened and ready, the light will shine even more brightly.

“What came to be through him was life,

and this life was the light of the human race;

the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it.”

These words from the Gospel of John on Christmas day were a balm. To hear them was the consolation of Christmas day. They were my Christmas gift from the word made flesh himself. It is He who animates the life within me and, were I to fully let Him, He would animate the life without as well.

*********************

Looking back through all the memories of Advent and Christmas there were so many jewels of moments. So many gifts, joys, and happy times, too. Some of the haphazard was hilarious comic relief…

…some turned into some of the most meaningful moments of the whole season.

The time with family was precious and sweet. The food was delicious…(that’s an important one!)

 

********************

And now we face a new calendar year, a fresh start. It’s time to keep one foot in front of the other and walk in faithfulness. Our pastor gave a homily on the Feast of Epiphany last Sunday about being Epiphanies ourselves. This idea resonated, too, more light imagery! The light bulb goes off! We had an Epiphany! Or, rather, an Epiphany happened to us. It lives in us, and we carry it into the world.

May 2017 be a year of light and love for all of us. May we kindle that light in our homes, in our families, in our communities, and radiate its warmth into the darker places of the world around us.