The Fifth Holiday Season

This is our fifth holiday season as a family of four. The fifth year we will sit around our oversized farm table with room enough for eight and realize one of those chairs will remain empty. The fifth year I will hang Woody’s stocking without stuffing it until it overflows with silly little gifts and his favorite treats. The fifth year…

Shouldn’t I be used to it by now? Shouldn’t I be over it? Maybe, but something about knowing this is the fifth time around the sun since our last holiday season with Woody makes it feel so final and devastating. I feel completely drained—exhausted, really—as we round the bend to another season of thanksgiving and joy.

Do not misunderstand me. I am thankful, and God’s joy fuels me daily. However, sometimes I am angry, angry at Woody for leaving; angry at the pain my children still endure; angry that my life is nothing like I envisioned it would be as I journey through middle-adulthood. So many transitions have occurred during 2019, and as 2020 begins to introduce itself I want to run and hide. I’m tired of trying.

Yet, during those moments of weakness, when my weary soul feels as if it cannot take another step, God gently lifts me from the floor into His loving arms and breathes into me the strength necessary for another day. And because He is faithful I know somehow, some way, we will survive the fifth holiday season

Stretched But Not Distorted

The holiday season is upon us, and I for one feel as if I am drowning in a sea of presents which still need to be purchased and cookies which still need to be baked. The house is in disarray and there is a list of tasks which need to be completed so that we can put our house on the market in preparation of moving to another state. We will have house guests for two weeks over Christmas, and the guest room is full of wrapped and unwrapped presents, ribbons, and bows. Throw in one absentee husband and three teenagers and “Presto!”—the perfect recipe for a migraine. Novartis, I will be investing in your company this year. If nothing else, I am doing my fair share to keep your company afloat as I procure as many bottles of Excedrin Migraine as I can safely consume. 

I feel as if I am a rubber band which has reached its elastic limit. Hooke’s law states that when an object is acted upon by a force, it will bend, stretch, or compress.  Once the force is removed, the object will return to its original shape. Elastic will stretch until it has reached its limit. Beyond that, it will be deformed and never return to its original shape. Yes. That is exactly how I feel right now. Stretched and on the brink of being buckled into an unrecognizable version of myself. Yet somehow, another day passes and my sanity is intact. My children are alive. My husband still loves me. How? God.

Without my faith I would flounder. It is my foundation and my strength. It is my sanity and my substance. Instead of panic, I know peace. Also, there is an interesting phenomenon that occurs when a rubber band is stretched—the molecules (polymers) in the rubber become aligned. They themselves are under no stress whatsoever. When the rubber band is at rest, the molecules are tangled with no real order. I am being stretched, but at the same time, my life is becoming aligned with God’s will as I learn to rely on Him during these uncertain, chaotic times.

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed, as long as you remember that being stretched can bring order and develop strength. And God will never allow you to be stretched beyond your elastic limit.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4