Our Charlie Brown Christmas tree stood in our bay window this month crooked with weeping, gaping branches.

It was the year of tree shortages.

But there in the sparseness of our sad Christmas tree was a message that didn’t need sprucing up.

In The Greatest Gift, Ann Voskamp reminds us through Habakkuk 3:

Even though the fig trees have no blossoms and though the Christmas tree aches a bit empty, even though there are no grapes on the vine and no trouble-free days, even though the olive crop fails, even though I fail, even though so much fails—even now I will rejoice in the Lord.

Somehow, miraculously, even in devastation, hurt, heartache, or loss we can laugh at awkward Christmas trees, celebrate birthdays, sing outside hospitals, and create snow caves.

In November I read through Lisa Whittle’s latest book, The Hard Good, but it wasn’t until the final chapter that her words collided with my real life.

She was figuring out life after losing her dad four years before, and I was processing words like brain bleed, blood transfusion, chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant, mutations... My dad’s ‘flu’ turned out to be acute leukemia.

The Hard

Cancer—this ugly word stabbed my heart in the spring with my mom's breast cancer diagnosis, and here it was spread throughout my dad's body.

For the first few nights after my dad was admitted to the hospital, I slept in fits and starts: weeping for Jesus to hold me as my heart pounded, and mind-raced with thoughts of him struggling in the hospital and all our dreams for his future.

Hours earlier I had pushed my mom in a wheelchair through the hospital, pretty wig and all, to visit my dad. She was completing her breast cancer treatments with a month of daily radiation appointments and was in desperate need of hip surgery!

The situation felt like a nightmare we couldn’t wake up from.

But ironically, after a few sleepless nights, I went to the hospital for myself, as I didn’t want to miss early signs of a heart attack (after being told I could be at risk for one due to high cholesterol just the month before).

I knew it was a bit dramatic—being in an emergency room, in the middle of the night, getting checked out.

But when the night shift nurse ran some tests and heard my story, she realized she had cared for my dad just four nights before, when he was transferred for further testing. This connection was timely, healing and we both agreed I wasn’t having a heart attack. I had a broken heart.

In the nights that followed, my body slept better as my mind and soul surrendered to a deeper level of resting in Christ.

Reflect:

• Is something stealing your sleep right now?

• Does your heart need an ‘emergency room' revelation of love, peace, or surrender?

The Good

In The Hard Good, Whittle walks us through chapters that lean in close to real-life struggles, and in chapter six, “Making Peace with Life When It's Brought Loss,” she concludes:

Your grief and disappointment will bring newfound belief that what remains must matter.

And so even in the midst of a health crisis, so much good remains!

My list could be very long but a few things stand out:

• How our church family surrounded my parents and siblings in practical ways through this whirlwind month.

• How six of us siblings unite daily over video calls with my dad and mom—brought together across provinces and countries to be in person to pray and offer support.

• How my dear friends have watched my kids, delivered food, sent prayers, and sat on my couch in solidarity, agreeing we could be heartbroken together.

This kind of care and empathy is described in The Body Keeps The Score:

Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love.

The weekend before Christmas we opened our doors to our cul-de-sac of neighbors and, as we held cookies and coffee, I shared that even with our Charlie Brown Christmas tree and my hero in the hospital, there IS still so much good.

I didn’t want one person, steps away from my door, to suffer alone, knowing struggle and loss had been felt in each home in 2021.

Like a lost puzzle piece, we feel disconnected from the big picture until another person's care links us to the love of God.

To carry burdens, to pray, and to celebrate is how we make it through hard seasons.

That’s what we did after my mom rang the Bell of Hope on the Monday before Christmas. Her cancer treatments were complete!

And days later, on Christmas Eve, we stood outside the hospital and sang Silent Night to my Dad who was watching us from the 5th floor with tears of gratitude.

Hope rang true this Christmas—in hospital rooms and beside cozy fires!

In our deepest time of need, Emmanuel assures us He is with us through His presence and through His people.

Oh, 2022. What do you hold?

I do not know. Not one of us knows.

But we can choose to marvel as good keeps coming, even in our hardest seasons.

A pastor’s wife said to me:

The miracle we often miss in the tragedy is that of keeping our faith!

I have soot on me and I am catching my breath from this fiery month—but I also have even deeper confidence that hard seasons do not need to be feared when we live by faith, in community.

When I entered my dad’s hospital room a couple of nights before Christmas I was struck by his glow. Though his body was weak I could see how God was renewing his inner man.

One of the things I cherish most are the conversations I have with my dad and I pray these will continue for many more years.

That we can sit around the campfire on a summer night and remember all the good that came through our hardest seasons.

Whatever may come in 2022, our eyes are ready to see good gifts of grace, wrapped up under even the most scraggly of trees.

Reflect:

• Who can I share my burden with today?

• How can I lift someone else’s burden this season?

Maybe this is the book you need to read next?

Each chapter has a transformative message of allowing God to do His good work!

I am so grateful to each of my readers and look forward to traveling together through 2022 as we begin the year focused on Emily P. Freeman’s wisdom and seek to do “the next right thing in love!”

Stay connected on Instagram and in the Traveling Life Together Facebook group.

I’m confident we can walk through whatever comes in 2022 with Jesus, His Word, and His people!

Happy New Year!

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