The holidays will be different this year. So much has happened in our lives since the holidays of 2019. What we’ve experienced this year has been overwhelming - personally, communally, globally. We’ve experience heartache and loss, sadness and disappointment, anger and frustration, fear and anxiety. We’re fatigued as we’ve been in a marathon of uncertainty, not knowing from week to week if and how we can make plans with our family and friends, if and how we can safely go back to work, school, and church, to stores and restaurants, to outdoor events or indoor events. We’ve been living on heightened alert around the pandemic, the politics, the racial tensions, and storms of all kinds. So much of what we think is “normal” has been changed dramatically or cancelled, and now we’re headed into the holidays.
We don’t have a choice about whether or not the holidays are coming. We do have a choice about how we will live into them. About a month ago I issued a “gratitude challenge” on Facebook, mostly because I needed a shift in perspective and response to the world around me. What has transpired has been an amazing experience of a personal spiritual practice finding encouragement and hope in a communal witness of gratitude. It has been the most lovely thing. We were reminded that even in all the hard, overwhelming, unwanted challenges of this year, we have so much for which to be grateful. In a year of unspeakable loss, not all is lost.
There’s a great meme going around called “Not Everything is Cancelled” that lists out some things that aren’t cancelled: sun, relationships, love, reading, devotion, music, imagination, kindness, conversations, hope. None of these things are cancelled. And neither is gratitude. A couple of years ago, I heard David Steindl-Rast say, on a podcast with Krista Tippett, that “gratitude is more resilient than the circumstances.” Our current circumstances may feel heavy and trying right now, and we may not be sure how we can continue to withstand them. I want to encourage you to try the “gratitude challenge” to find some resilience for the circumstances. The challenge is to name three things each day for which you are grateful, and to document that somehow, either in a journal, or on scrap paper, or on your phone, or on social media (#sherisgratitudechallenge) Documenting it helps you remember to do it, provides you a way to look back at the journey to see how resilient you’ve been regardless of the circumstances, and if you share it on social media, becomes part of communal resilience, too.
To be sure, the holidays will be different this year - experiences, events, and traditions will be changed; some, even cancelled. I invite you to remember all that has NOT been cancelled, including - and maybe most importantly - God’s love for you, God’s presence with you, God’s tender mercy toward you, God’s Spirit breathing life into you, because there is nothing that can cancel those things. There is nothing that can cancel the invitation to prepare our hearts once again to celebrate the birth of Jesus, Prince of Peace, Light of the World, Emmanuel—God-WITH-us—right here, right now, in the very midst of all that is different and all that has been cancelled. Nothing can cancel the invitation to have our hope renewed and our trust deepened as we continue heading into the unknown, heart and hands held securely by the One who does know.
Be encouraged in the journey, friends.
With a grateful heart,
Pastor Sheri
