Advent Day 18: Difficult times

Sometimes, it feels like things go wrong in December.  Everyone is tired and moody and longing for a break. The days are dark, long and gloomy.  We shiver around radiators, we long for light and hope.
It seems when things aren't going merrily at Christmas, life seems even harder. It feels personal. It feels like everyone else is rejoicing, being merry.

I remember when I was 22 and my boyfriend of 2.5 years split up with me 2 weeks before Christmas. EVERYTHING felt really hard that year. All my household was happy. Everything felt hard and new.  I remember keeping a brave face for everyone but it was really difficult. And all that was, was a break up from my boyfriend, imagine that it was a divorce, death, redundancy, cancer diagnosis- the outlook would have been bleaker.

Or it might be that you are teacher, particularly one dealing with pastoral care, it seems that the pupils are doing their utmost to get in trouble, argue, be nasty to each other, finding the SAME old issues keep coming up and don't seem to be resolved, you doubt yourself, wonder if you can keep doing this job, feel helpless or like giving up.

For all it is the most wonderful time of the year, folks can be generally mean and nasty to each other.
Imagine the family member left at home whilst the rest of the family are out playing, having fun, one can feel forsaken. One can imagine horrors and things going on that aren't true. I feel that sometimes, if the devil can find a chink in our armour, finds our insecurities, he plays on those, exasperates those fears and doubts and blows these up in our mind.

Or the anxiety of knowing you want to provide a wonderful time for your family, but the sheer fact that the sums won't add up and there's no money to pay for it.

Facing a first Christmas without a loved one. I am going to the carol service at my old church tonight and automatically started thinking of dropping in on Norma on my way there and remembering she is no longer with us.

I had started to think about writing this, about Christmas sometimes being difficult and then I saw Ang's Pause for Advent and discovered she had written about something similar.

She shared this wonderful poem which sums it up so evocatively:

Let the bells jingle but make time for tears to fall.

Eat, drink and be merry but do not go hungry in that inner place.

Rest, reflect and remember, Be true to yourself.

Many of us can't play happy families at this time of year.

December is for a difficult diagnosis as well as dreaming of a white Christmas

December is for divorce as well as decorations.

December is for death and dying as well as discos and dancing.

December is for distances that separate us from people,

even those in the same room.

Disappointment in December is especially hard to bear.

Sometimes the light no longer shines in the darkness.

The desolation swallows us up and we die a little.

Yet a kindly word, a bird in flight, a tree alive with hoar and hips

can drown out despair and kindle determination to move on.

Dig down deeper than the tinsel to the place where hope is found.

Maybe, just maybe, the flickering flame will be fanned gentle into fire.

And then when all is lost, all we have is hope.  A friend who is still up when you phone to share your doubts; a fellow teacher who understands the difficulty; a hug or the reassurance that all is not lost.
For me, Christmas is about hope. Christ came to bring hope to the world and for me personally.  I know that if all felt lost, he would be there for me.

There is HOPE at Christmas. A light in the darkness.

Love, peace and hope to you this year, whatever you are dealing with..

xxx