The Big Achey Place

When Does Love Show Up?

As liturgical Christians everywhere will remind us, it’s still Christmas. But instead of the anticipation and joy of the star’s glorious unveiling, we find ourselves standing in the middle of a muddy, potholed backroad.

Even though we now have more light than we did a few days ago, it’s still dark outside at four PM and here in Oregon the rain refuses to let up. For me, it’s a symbol of the lost-ness, alone-ness and disappointed-ness that comes after Christmas wrappings are strewn about and the carpet is full of dry fir needles.

You might say that my spirit has died a little too. I’ve sent off my husband with a service including Military Honors from his years in the Marine Corps. I always laugh when I tell people that when he first went off to war in Viet Nam, I was in the sixth grade. Yesterday, we honored him the best way we knew how, and I’m incredibly grateful for so much loving support.

And then there’s reality, standing on the roadside with a smirk on its face.

This actual life is not what I envisioned. Inside me, there’s an undiscovered country of emptiness my husband once filled. I won’t get to sit in a matching rocking chair with him as we both enter our nineties. Seventy-eight and three-quarters of living were enough for his tired old heart. No Golden Pond, no retirement community, no pickleball or all-you-can-eat buffets. Reality mocks my now-deceased silly fantasies.

The dark path I enter reminds me of the unknown fall-off-the-side-of-the-flat-earth thinking that I’m so susceptible to, that we all fall for at one time or another. Like pioneers, we who’ve lost loved ones try to map out a route—never realizing that over the next mountain, the Donner Party waits in frozen silence.

The best we can hope for is that when we get to Donner Pass, nobody’s hungry.

Or is it?

As a disabled person who has battled chronic pain most of my life, I once read a quote that has stayed with me: “Stand in the middle of the pain.”

My first reaction is to say, “Are you effing nuts?” Who in her right mind dives in for a new round of torture? Asking to stand there in agony is a lot like beating yourself over the head because hurt feels so good.

Standing in the middle of a crossroads, the muddy puddles are deepest. I’m shivering with cold and dampened expectations, not knowing which way to go. My lovely supporters, friends and family reach out to me, but as in a dream, we can’t really connect. Everywhere I look I see others who’ve lost their loved ones, but somehow, I’m the only one in the universe.

God, Jesus, the Source—whatever you like to call the Creator—feels far away. I’ve come, so weary and heavy-laden, but I can’t find rest. My prayers are full of please please please instead of thanks and praise. Sleep only deadens me to the path set before me. Yet as I take my first baby step towards mourning, I find that I’m not so alone after all.

Maybe that’s how the light gets in. While I slept fitfully, love tiptoed into my vast plain of sorrow and reclaimed it for good. With love’s arrival, my suffering is transformed to mercy.

Stand in the middle of the pain.

And that mercy beckons the Author of Love. Come in, come in, the Spirit says. There’s plenty of room here.

Instead of a stable, Christ is birthed again in my vacant heart. Here he is, expanding to fill every blank space. There he is, standing with me in the middle of the pain. He tells me there’ll be enough for me and all who come to the table.

The crossroads of muddy potholes still waits for me to step in the quicksand. Still smirking, my new reality scoffs at love and says it’s not enough. Life promises to keep buffeting me with wind that topples old growth firs and knocks out your satellite dish.

I’m pretty sure I won’t do this grief thing right at some point. I’ll probably end up cursing at God or staying in bed all day, drinking too much Diet Dr. Pepper and forgetting to eat. But as we walk through the twelve days of Christmas, I can’t help hungering for Epiphany—mine and yours and all of ours.

Those kings were onto something bigger than all of us. That something will stand in the middle of the pain with me, with you, with those who’ve lost husbands or wives or children. I’m still pretty dang weary and heavy-laden, but now I see another way Jesus will be there: As I take steps forward in this new life, I can leave the rest to Him.