When Christmas Brings Rain

“It’s supposed to rain on Sunday,” I tell Musa one otherwise ordinary evening.

He glances at me across the room and sighs heavily.

“What should we do?” I ask, worriedly.

He replies as I know he will, in his simple and ever-so-reasonable way: “What can we do?”

This particular weekend just so happens to be our very last opportunity to take Christmas photos. We’ve already purchased matching outfits and booked our favorite photographer (shameless plug for the brilliance that is Kelsey Herrera) who has already sold us on the perfect outdoor location.

And now, rain.

Sure, it rained last year too, but this is not a cute drizzle we’re anticipating. This is rain, rain, that threatens to ruin Christmas memories in the making.

“Light rain could be fun,” Kelsey assures me by text. “I’ve got a red umbrella …”

I wish I had her optimism.

Instead, I am tempted to cancel. But I can’t deny there’s something magical about documenting our family’s growth each and every year. There is something beautiful about rejoicing in the fact that we are still here, and that God is still sustaining us, leading us, carrying us. For all our bumps and bruises, these photos are proof positive that we’re still making it.

For no other reason than that we have no other choice, we decide to take the photos anyway.

Sunday morning comes and I feel absolutely ridiculous. There is a torrential downpour outside. We are crazy, I tell myself as we leave the house. How in the world are we going to be able to get even one good shot in this mess? The boys, on the other hand, are absolutely thrilled at the sight of rain. They beg to wear their rain boots and fight over the umbrella. They jump in more than one puddle on the way to the car (to my chagrin), and talk excitedly about seeing Ms. Kelsey after church.

To us, the rain is an inconvenience. To them, it is a field day.

I wish I had their perspective.

It was more than a little cold and wet, but we take the photos anyway. In the rain, Musa and I hold our family close under a huge umbrella and coax the boys into smiles. It did not feel pleasant at the time. It was freezing, actually, under dreary skies. We left damp and more than a little tired from a long day, but the result was more beautiful than we could have imagined. What felt like chaos turned into goodness as we reviewed the photo gallery in awe later that evening.

Life is like that sometimes. You plan something grand, coordinate down to the little details, and life brings rain. It can be hard to cope, hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other, hard to smile, hard to find the good in it all.

If I’m honest, the past few years have felt that way … like a perpetual monsoon on the life I’d planned for myself. By now, I was supposed to have accomplished more. I should be more sure and farther along. But here I am, accepting the life God has so lovingly given me instead of what I planned for myself. I’m holding my umbrella high, because even when life doesn’t feel good, God is good, and He’s promised to bring beauty out of my chaos.

I’m comforted, remembering that the very first Christmas was a lot like that. God was silent for centuries without a single prophet in Israel while His people waited in the rain hanging on to the hope of a promise. When the day of salvation finally came, it was not at all what they had planned. Jesus’ humble birth and gruesome death did not seem at all good.

But God was there all along, working out His plan, giving us beauty for our ashes, loving us even when we rejected Him time and time again. It did not seem good, but ohhh is it good!

It’s possible you’re experiencing a little rain of your own this Christmas. Life can be like that.

Loved ones die. Marriages end. Infertility persists. Unemployment comes. Injustice reigns. The pounds pile up. People get deployed. Loneliness and depression threaten.

Christmas can feel like just another reminder that the world is not as it should be. In this season where we’re all supposed to be happy and smiling, we can struggle, like Charles Schulz’s beloved Charlie Brown who lamented:

“I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel.” ~A Charlie Brown Christmas

Schulz was on to something. Indeed, there is something wrong in each of us. The sin in our hearts separates us from a good and loving God.

But then Christ came — and not to take away all the bad things in the world, not so that we would be happy — but so that we could have hope and unexplainable joy, even in the rain. In a world full of sinful people and the consequences thereof, Christ came to defeat sin once and for all. Amen, anyone? Except He left us in the rain so to speak, shielded from the storms of life under the umbrella of His grace, sufficient for us.

The best news? We’re not alone. Not for a moment.

He is God with us. God in us. God covering us. God leading us. God seeing and knowing us. God redeeming us.

He is holding out the umbrella of hope to you this Christmas, generously offering to orchestrate your good for His glory. He is the reason we have hope. He is why we can rejoice now and look forward to what comes next, even in the rain.

So if, by chance, it’s raining on you this Christmas, know this: if you’re in Christ, you will be okay even if you’re not okay this year. If you’re not feeling happy, that’s perfectly ok. If December brings with it tragedy, or anxiety, or reminders of what was and what is not to your doorstep, it’s ok to grieve the losses and the pain.

It is not happiness that will save us, but HOPE! In Christ, we have a beautiful, glorious hope that is unhindered by our emotions and the ups and downs of life. It might not feel good this Christmas, but He’s working it for your good.

So raise your umbrella high this Christmas and cling to the hope of His promise. He’s got you.

xoxo.

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.” ~ Isaiah 61:1-3 (ESV)

Prepare Him Room

It’s Advent. Again.

The joy of Thanksgiving behind us — of food and family and gratitude — we’re now creeping (at a dizzying pace) toward “the most wonderful time of the year.” But even as I cue the Christmas music playlist, create Pinterest boards for gifts and gear up for some of our family’s favorite holiday traditions, there’s the nagging possibility that amid all this holiday cheer and busy-ness, I just might miss it.

If I’m not careful, I will deck the halls, sing the songs, take the pictures, buy the gifts and eat the food, only to miss altogether the wonder of the incarnated Christ. With my attention on everything and everyone else, I won’t really see the God of the universe packaged in the body of a helpless baby and delivered first-class to a virgin mother in a manger. My heart will be just as far away from that very first Christmas miracle as the miles between my home and Bethlehem, my mind as far away from that supernatural reality as the couple thousands years that separate this night from that one.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Despite all my planning and best intentions, Christmas sneaks up on me every year without fail. Unlike my disciplined sister, who does her shopping all year long, I am usually not finished until the very last minute — fearlessly testing the limits of my Amazon Prime subscription (same-day shipping anyone??) It is only when I am done making the Christmas holiday that I feel I can truly rest and enjoy it. This means the warm fuzzies are generally reserved for Christmas mornings while the kids open their gifts, a narrow window which lasts mere minutes before the wrapping paper is cleared, and the task of Christmas breakfast begins, followed by Christmas dinner prep, followed by carting the kids to and from their grandparents’ homes, followed by a very exhausted me falling into bed hours later.

No, it wouldn’t be the first time.

And not just for me. The Jews completely missed the angel’s First Noel too that night in Bethlehem. It snuck up on them in a way they didn’t expect. While they awaited the triumphal entry of a heavenly king, they missed the cries of a holy child.

We face the very same danger this holiday season. Stores clamor for our pocketbooks. Hallmark movies pull at our heartstrings. Social media is more tempting than ever. Holiday parties and dresses and festivities make us feel like we’re really “in the spirit,” but it’s all in vain if we miss Him. This Christmas will come and go and we will have simply missed the meaning, and the wonder, of it all.

Love came down to us on the very first Christmas. Love stretched Mary’s womb until she could no longer hold it and burst into our world as a crying, bare-bottomed baby who couldn’t so much as hold a bottle, yet supernaturally held the reins of the universe. Love watched through an infant’s eyes as the heavenly choir sang, as the shepherds stood amazed, as the wise men worshipped and Mary pondered.

World, meet Jesus.

Hello, Christmas.

Except only a half dozen folks celebrated that very first Christmas including a band of shepherds and a few wise men. The very Word that created the earth, wrapped itself in human flesh, descended to the world it created and surprise, surprise … life went on as usual.

And just like the world didn’t stop that night so long ago when heaven came down to us, neither will this holiday season stop for us. If we let it, Advent will come and go, Christmas will pass like another day on the calendar and before you know it, we’ll be on to the next thing, starting New Year’s resolutions and making plans for 2020.

No, the holiday season won’t stop, but maybe we can? Just a little? Maybe we can pause to tune out the noise of the news, turn off the social media notifications, silence whatever is clamoring for our attention, and focus with intensity on the wonder of Christ come to save us.

My prayer for you and me is that we won’t miss Him Christmas … that we will “fall on our knees,” that our souls will truly feel their worth, that we will experience the “thrill of hope” and “hear the angel voices.”

Let’s you and I not let another Christmas or Advent season go by without seeing the miracle of the manger and experiencing the joy — not of the circumstantial and certainly fleeting Christmas spirit — but of Emmanuel. He is God with us, come to us, for us, to save us.

May our response to Jesus this Christmas be like the wise men when they saw Him lying in the manger: worship and wonder.

May it be like the disciples when they saw Him resurrected for the first time: worship and wonder.

May it be like your own heart the moment you first believed: worship and wonder.

And if you’ve never experienced that worship or wonder, perhaps this could be the most special Christmas of all for you.

Let our hearts prepare Him room this Advent as we truly embrace the miracle of the manger and the love of a beautiful, merciful Savior.

___

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6, ESV