Advent Day Three
Tragedy can freeze a moment in time. Regret, shame, fear, anxious unknowing, doubt…. it can all creep and color an entire season of life. Suffering has a way of putting a blanket of sadness over a period or time and the days begin to lose their texture. Our family will remember this as a year of losses. Our grandparents who were living with us died 24 hours apart in February. My other grandpa, Victor, died in July. Our oldest son, Marcel, leaves for boot camp in a few days and his little siblings are quite sad about it. And of course things like dying and funerals resurface the pain of broken relationships and families not being the way they were designed to be.
But it’s not just my family that has experienced the sting of death this year. “2020 is the worst” jokes are endlessly posted online. The intensity of this year has shown us how out of control, afraid, selfish, isolated and angry we are. We make jokes and we will talk about 2020 for the rest of our lives.
This January, my grandma ended up in the hospital, leaving my grandpa without her by his side for the first time in 66 years. My younger son, Judah, decided he was going to keep my grandpa company every day after school. One day my grandpa said, “you're a kind boy. Don’t you get bored sitting next to me every day?” Judah said, “Sometimes, but I don’t want you to be lonely. It’s nice for you to have someone to wait with.” My grandpa smirked and said, “Patient people make good family members.” And then he filled the time telling some great stories, remembering the life of blessing he had.
My grandfather spent the last few decades of life waiting. A nerve disease damaged his ability to walk requiring my grandmother to be his caretaker. The world was rarely patient with him and he could easily be left out. But for the patient, he would remember out loud the many blessings woven throughout his life story. Even stories of great hardship were told through the lens of blessing. His last 7 or 8 years of life were remarkable to me. At every new experience of suffering, he surrendered his will and continued to remember. I think this practice allowed my grandfather to embody hope.
Hope-filled waiting requires remembering. In remembering, we see God bursting onto the scene again and again throughout human history to deliver, reveal, expose, heal, create, redeem, restore. In remembering, we notice the blessings of God that bursts into the scene of our own lives. Remembering is the way we examine the texture and nuances of blessing woven all throughout our days.
Even in a difficult year of tragedy and loss, there are great treasures. I had beautiful exchanges of touch and words in my final days and weeks with my three grandparents. Before covid, our family went to Disneyland. Quarantine has been filled with dance parties and 1990s TV marathons. We camped, hiked, and baked a lot of cookies. We celebrate with our oldest son as he starts a new chapter of life. We’ve seen God empower steps toward reconciliation in broken relationships. We spent time with cousins laughing about childhood. Undeserved grace. Miracles. Treasures.
This will be true of 2020 for the whole world. We will look back and hear stories of heroic medical workers, incredible innovations, and radical generosity. Light shines all throughout the darkness. Tragedy wants to rob this year and shade every aspect of it. But seeds of new life have been growing all along. Let’s notice them, remember them, and invite the Spirit of God to cultivate hope in our innermost being as we consider the great gift of Christ becoming man. God dwelling with us. Light shining in darkness.
