This time of year is special – in all the good ways and in all the hard ways. I know both intimately. 

Things are joyous with Christmas crafts, and tree cutting, and twinkle lights reflecting off of frosted windows in the early mornings, but some things are more sorrow than joy, more somber than laughter-filled. 

I feel the gratitude of a year full of hard work and growth and also a year full of disappointments and unmet expectations and honest fatigue. Tension at its finest.

I’m aware of my growing family but also that I’d be welcoming a different child days from now if things had gone differently – a child I’ll never know this side of heaven. And yet I’m so thankful to know this child growing in me now, too. Again, tension. 

I fly toward Christmas and the end of another year with an understanding that we’ve been provided for in more ways than I can count, but that trusting has growing pains that, if I’m honest, I truly hate.

When the world feels tumultuous I feel the tension – the guilt – in savoring the things that are good here. 

Again, I feel tired. 

So much joy, so much sorrow – in tandem. 

And then there’s the unique thread that ties those two extremes together: hope.

Hope that things won’t always be this way and hope that it’s okay to feel both sorrow and joy simultaneously and hope that difficult seasons can pave the way for beauty and understanding beyond what I can see if I let them. 

I don’t mean to tie this up with a pretty bow, even though that’s my tendency to do as an act of coping and making sense of things. I want to acknowledge that the nuances of Christmas-time are there for everyone. 

Maybe it’s family issues, relational struggles, grief over death, grief over transition. Whatever it is, I’d guess that for most of us this season carries its own nuanced tension unique to each of our situations and struggles, highs and lows. And maybe the hope in it all is that we’re not alone? 

Maybe the hope in it all is that someone else understands and sees and knows.