The Holy Hard

In the sugary sweet, secular time of Christmas I find time and time again I need nourishing and sustaining holiness. The holiness that is not cheap, but real, a holiness that is a Divine’s invitation to embrace my full humanity. It is a holy hope that can be carried with me throughout this journey of life.

My social media, a place that used to prominently cause me anxiety and too often triggered my insecurities has now been created into a place where I am inspired, uplifted, and deeply moved. I follow writers, artists, creators creating art that speaks to human hearts—especially this human heart. I have seen invitational art throughout this season that invites people to feel how they feel and reminds us all that while the world might sell us the idea that this should be the “happiest and most wonderful time of year” for many it isn’t.

This season is often a painful and difficult time of year. A season that serves as a reminder of what is lacking, what or who is missing.

It can be a complex season; where we do not know how to navigate the conflicting emotions. Grief sharp and strong with laughter somehow mixed in. Leaving us bewildered and confused as we navigate what is perhaps a bittersweet time of the year— achingly difficult yet still somehow achingly beautiful.

There is such pressure to have the picture perfect Christmas; to give and receive extravagant gifts, to go bigger, better, louder, more sparkly.

In my adulthood, I have found it more difficult to get into the “holiday happy spirit.” Many of my peers, myself included, make jokes about relating to the Grinch from Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas and the various productions of the book. If you have ever seen the live action from 2000 of How the Grinch Stole Christmas you will know the “Christmas spirit/holiday happy” was something both Mr. Grinch and Cindy Lou Who struggled with. They, like me, thought Christmas ought to be something more than all twinkling lights, competition, and a mad rush to get more stuff.

This season of Advent, I have intentionally chosen to immerse myself in and seek out the holy. I was fortunate enough to preach the first two Sundays in Advent, I preach the day after Christmas, so I am delving into scripture, I am writing this Advent devotion as an intentional spiritual practice for myself, and I am engaging with the holy works and thoughts of others throughout this season. And I am so grateful because I feel the holy presence of God with us.

I am choosing and finding how much I need the digging into of the scriptures and the stories I find there and allow myself to be wrapped in holiness rather than holiday happiness. For me holiday happiness seems to drastically lack something I need in the face of hatred, violence, devastation, hunger, grief, fear and so much more darkness that consumes minds, bodies, hearts, souls—the world. Holiday happiness does not fill me with what I need to be nourished and sustained.

Scripture cries out to me, telling me stories of people who were living in a world full of these very same things. They tell me stories of people who were trying to navigate a world with all its harshness and somehow find hope—to find the Divine in the midst of it all. The scriptures remind us that we are not alone in how we feel, what we experience, and they tell us that God pursues, God redeems, God delivers over and over and over again.

God came into the world—a world broken, hateful, and violent just like the world we live in now. God has continually created a way to reconcile, to redeem, and rescue this world and God’s people. The scriptures do not ignore the harshness of the world, they do not overlook the hardness, the grief, the suffering, the realities of what it means to be human. Rather, they tell us stories about what it means to be human and to have hope in spite of the many reasons not to. They point to where God is, how God is at work, and invite us into that same work.

God pursues, God shows up, God redeems, God rescues, God delivers.

Scripture reminds us of the holy hard. The hardness of life that God chooses to step into, to be born into, to live into (then, now, and to come again). God steps right into the midst of the hard somehow making it holy, or set apart—so we, God’s beloved children are not alone. So we do not face this devastatingly difficult life without hope, without love, without God.

I am in the holy hard. I join in with all those who are waiting with hopeful (or even not hopeful) anticipation, for the dawn to break upon high (Luke 1:78) and for God to surely fulfill God’s promises (Jeremiah 33:14) just as God has done, God will do, and just as I witness, experience, and see God doing it right here right now.

At times hope, peace, joy, and love seem like fluffy wishes. What I am learning day after day is that they are not fluffy wishes rather holy hard realities. They are real, life sustaining gifts. They are active, powerful, all consuming forces that are set apart and set us apart, out of the despair this world seems to only want to offer us.

These holy hard gifts, set our actions and our everyday mundane moments and our worst most unimaginable moments apart. They are durable, heavy lifters that will stand up and have stood up to all the forces that aim to destroy them.

The Christmas story I am choosing to put my hope and trust in is not one of fragility, sentimentality, rosy and cheery. It is one of true power, humbleness, and fierce (as Nadia Boltz Weber describes Mary’s yes in Jen Hatmaker’s For the Love Of podcast) faithful yeses. God created a way that meets us humans exactly where we are—no matter where that is. If it is the holiday happy (thanks be to God!) or if it is the holiday heartbreaking hard.

It is right into this messy but achingly beautiful world that Emmanuel came, comes now, and will come again. And this my friends is something real, something sustaining, something holy I am willing to hope in, trust in, and believe with my whole being in.

May we choose the holy hard, along with the holiday happy, if we are able, while recognizing that not everyone will have this privilege and may we meet them where they are and loving them as they are.

When we choose to live in the holy hard, we embrace the human messiness knowing that it is blessed and declared holy because of a God who chose, chooses, and always will choose to meet us in it never abandoning us.

There might be dark forces all around but the light has come, the light is here (even if it is dim at times) and the light is surely coming again—and the darkness has not, shall not , and will never overcome it (John 1:5).

Peace, Blessings, and all my Love,

Margaret