Mourning to Dancing

This time of year is a mixed bag of emotions for me.  I experience sadness, as my current reality doesn't seem to glitter quite like my memories of lovely childhood holidays.  I grieve for my grandparents whose death still seems fresh, though it's been a few years.  I'm apprehensive about the year ahead.  Family has to cancel plans to visit, and things get crunched and hectic at work.  In big and small ways, the holidays can be tough - and I know I'm not the only one who experiences this.  The tradition of Blue Christmas, brought around usually during the time of the winter solstice, is a way that many churches acknowledge the bittersweet feelings that many folks experience during this time of year. 

God honors such a mixture of emotions, for they are a reflection of real life.  Our days, even in December, are not a Currier & Ives picture postcard.  Our days are filled with the mundane, the wonderful, and the very difficult.  God knows this, for we are in a world of God's creation.  This is why the words of Psalm 30:11-12 are so reassuring:  "You have turned my sorrow into joyful dancing.  No longer am I sad and wearing sackcloth.  I thank you from my heart, and I will never stop singing your praises, my Lord and my God" (CEV).

No matter what we are going through - and no matter when we are going through it – God’s love holds good things for us just around the bend.  We can prepare to sing and dance once again, knowing that God's love is faithful, God's joy is true, and that God's hope will never die.  For, indeed, this is what Christmas is all about! 

Lisa Marchal
Indianapolis