Bittersweet.
I sat in the pew with my family and enjoyed a beautiful, child-oriented Christmas eve service tonight. It was everything I’ve hoped for in a family worship experience – and it was so well done. The family ministry team had the forethought to forego handing a sanctuary full of toddlers lit candles, and instead provided everyone with finger-lights. So, we still got to sing silent night in a darkened room filled with little sparks…but without the fear of anyone’s hair catching on fire…or a curious toddler grabbing at the flame.
Grief goes in circles. It can lay mostly dormant for seasons and then resurface, for known or unknown reasons, with a vengeance. It can add a little (or a lot of…) bitter to the sweet parts of life – like holidays. In the midst of sitting and feeling so grateful for the ministry staff and volunteers that made today’s experience happen, I couldn’t help but think about our church family back in Tennessee.
Most days are good…Most days the grieving of our old life, our old town, our old community, our old identity…most of the time we are able to be present in the now and just overwhelmingly grateful for where we are…but sometimes the loss still hurts. Sure, there were wounds there (as there would be at any organization over the course of 10 years) but there was also so much joy…so much love…so much connection.
I will miss the flickering candles of Christmas eve in Nashville as long as I can imagine. I will miss the volunteers and staff who selflessly gave their time and energy on a day when many get to be at home enjoying their families. I REALLY miss getting to pass out candles and greet people on their way in…Christmas was always the time to see faces we hadn’t seen in a long time, and to see so many faces of people we cared about all joined into one room.
Ever since I shared about some of my feelings of hurt from my ministry experience, I have felt a little stuck…I have felt like, by sharing it, I have pigeon-holed my experience into this one lens…that everyone (at least everyone who reads my blog) will see it through that one lens…That lens was certainly part of it for me, but my experience was complex and multifaceted and so integrated with my life and identity. It was a beautiful mix of bittersweet. I don’t want the fact that I shared about some of the ways that I felt wounded to keep me from feeling free to share all of the things I was and am SO proud of from those days… I want to be able to share the ways in which I respected and learned so much from my leaders and co-workers, and even in the hard experiences, I grew so much. I want to share the ways that I felt loved and encouraged and challenged too.
And I want to encourage you to do the same with wherever your grief sends you this year…It’s ok for it to be both bitter and sweet – it doesn’t have to be either / or. You can acknowledge and enjoy and cherish the wonderful memories of what you have lost or who you are missing, and still feel the sting of the loss, or anger over past circumstances. It is not a betrayal of the person, place, or thing you are grieving to feel joy…even if it might feel like it sometimes. It is not a betrayal to feel anger or sadness, either… Both of these are very natural expressions of the grieving process. You don’t have to categorize it or put it into a box. So much love from my cozy little rocking chair flying all the way down to Nashville, all the way over to Kansas City, across the ocean to Portugal, north to Michigan, west to California, and in giant, circles around Indiana.
Merry Christmas Eve, friends…
{re}image 