Chicago’s weather is not mild. Our winters are painfully frigid.
Come daylight savings time, darkness descends upon our city at 5 p.m. The trees become barren and eventually covered by snow. January is not for the faint of heart. By February you have a deep yearning for the balmy temperatures of May.
Then it all changes.
The warmth and sun returns. When the weather finally becomes temperate you feel a sense of accomplishment as if you truly earned it. You did the hard work and now you get summer.
I moved to Georgia for a season thinking that I would love the year-round warmth and sun. But I didn’t. I missed the distinct changes between the seasons, putting on coats and hats, feeling the whipping wind against my face. I missed having a running nose and having to alter my schedule to the weather.
Somewhere deep inside my heart understands there is a greater joy in redemption than constant happiness.
My heart leaps not at perfection but at the imperfect that reminds me someday Jesus will bring perfect. Georgia was perfect and beautiful. But it felt artificial and like a forced, boring story. Where was the darkness that eventually brings forth light? Where was the climax? How did we earn this? How could you even appreciate it?
I love Matt more than I could possibly love anyone because he knows the bad, broken parts of me, parts that may be unresolved yet he committed to stay until those become beautiful. Life is not constant joy and light. But it eventually will be.
For our lives now we have broken joy.
We live in seasons. Seasons of darkness and then incredible warmth.
Sometimes we have to bundle up and put on twinkly lights when it turns dark at 5 p.m., and wait for the balmy warm winds to return.
For the coming Holiday season, I am going to put on lots of layers , let the cold wind whip against my face and light candles in our apartment in anticipation of what is to come. I am going to let the darkness point my heart back to the one who will be born who brings true light.
A baby born in the middle of the night will lead us into a greater story.
It will not be told on a balmy beach in Florida but will begin in a manger in the midst of darkness.
If you are over the age of twelve, the Holiday season is full of contradictions. It is generally not Christmas until someone cries in our family.
The Holidays heighten my desire for wholeness and joy, and yet something will always go wrong.
Someone will hurt my feelings. I will be let down in someway. Not everything will be shiny and warm the way I want it to be.
There will be broken joy and yet it will be perfect. I will turn on the heat and cover our little apartment in lights, and remind myself of the light He brought out of darkness in my own life.
My wife, Sue, and myself are broken people as well. Though I feel Sue has endured much worse than I. Often I think, if I knew then what I know now…. But, I love her more than words can say. Her pain ultimately becomes my pain. But, like the seasons, we'll get through it, together.