It's not exactly been what I was expecting.
These "down-time" days between Christmas and New Year's have, in the past, been just as eagerly anticipated as all the fun, festivities and worship of the weeks leading up to and including Christmas Day. A time for resting, coming away, being quiet.
For Ken and I, it's also been a chance to reconnect and say I love you in more than just the fleeting ways one often defaults to in a busy household and a busy life. Just those few nothing-on-the-calendar days can deposit so much into the cherishing account. Lovely. Needful.
But this year's been different.
Leading up to Christmas - over the top! We all worked hard, both at home and at church, to make things wonderful and beautiful and Christmasful. And it was worth it. Decorations up early, setting the stage. Strong and well spoken Christmas series for Sunday mornings. Stellar, redemptive Staff and Spouses Dinner at our house on the 16th. Three performances this year of Let It Be Christmas, with record attendance totaling 430. Watching groups of people working together for the common good, being generous and gracious and making all out investments in the lives of others. Hearing Abby recite the pieces of the Christmas story, all throughout the season, as her Dad led the family Advent liturgies. Being as much as possible altogether for all of Christmas Day - a gift this family does not take for granted. I am grateful for it all. Christmas 2011 will be remembered with affection and deep satisfaction.
It's this post-Christmas time that's been less than what, so badly it feels, I need it to be. An infectious 'something' with one of the kids required the cancellation of an important connect for Ken and I, and rearrangements in who would travel where to what over the next two days after Christmas. A cold I'd been able to ward off during the pre-Christmas activity, has won over now, not in a severe way, but just enough to make me feel really tired. The three day privilege of acting as full-time Gramma, that I eagerly volunteered for, has revealed that I have lost that skill of finding meaningful but completely interruptable things to do while delightful small children play at my feet for extended periods of time.
Add to that a pre-Christmas, perceived-by-me relational snub that feels way bigger than it probably is, and that the holidays make difficult to follow up on, and I am, quite frankly, well.....cranky. I do not feel any after Christmas glow. Like, really don't. And I know that all too soon, I will be back into the swing of what the new year holds, knowing some of the challenges that face me once I step foot into my office on January 3rd, and the energies this will require....and....yeah....cranky.
And I write about this not to complain, because the truth is I have so much abundance in my life that complaining is truly wrong. And being cranky in the middle of it seems wrong. So maybe I'm writing to confess the crankiness, in hopes that will help it go away. Or to acknowledge that down days of disappointment and loneliness can still happen in the midst of an abundant life. And to help me remember this when engaging with people who struggle with so much more than I do, and are heroically NOT cranky.
And anyways, I'm sustained.
I was reminded of that as I sat crankily beside the fire during nap time yesterday, crying and feeling sorry for myself. "I am he, I am he who will sustain you." Isaiah 46:4. Oh, how gentle is this God who comes to sit beside the crank.
And now today begins with nothing particularly different planned than yesterday. So we'll see. I still feel cranky as I get myself up. But I think this could be another great day to let Him be my sustaining God. And that's a post-Christmas gift I can be grateful for.
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