For many years our family found intimate community inside the walls of a church of thousands on Christmas Eve. This year, in our small seaside town, we’re wondering where we will worship, if anyone will notice our absence.
In the early days of ministry, our backyard met the asphalt of the mega church parking lot in Phoenix, where my husband served as one of fifteen pastors. On Christmas Eve, we padded our shiny shoes through a backyard battlefield of pecans; hair haloed by orange trees, their bounty brushing our velvet and lace. We pushed the wooden gate open like the closet door of Narnia, into the sun setting golden over the desert, bouncing her light shadows off rows of windshields and arms swinging gift bags.
And seventy-five people followed us back home.
It started with a few pastors and their wives following us home for dinner, to pass the time before doing the service all over again for the midnight crowd.
Our casual invitation grew into a tradition. Soon we began pushing furniture against the walls to make room for the swelling staff and friends to sit down cross-legged on the floor with lap’s plated chili con queso and tamales. All that ended ten years ago.
We left that church, accepting an invitation to pastor another on the East Coast. Then we moved five years later, to fill a ministry position outside the local church.
A few months ago, we left the only church we’ve attended since that last move, four years ago.
They voted. Like family separating over who likes chicken more than roast beef for dinner. We’re still standing outside holding our empty plates waiting for crumbs with our mouths drawn open. Our fingers numb from the cold breeze blowing the silence.
I won’t hear my pastor belt out O Come, O Come Emmanuel in the bold southern twang that brought me to my knees ten years ago, or dip my candle in the flame of friendship standing nearby. I won’t rearrange my living room furniture, smile over the stacks of dishes lining my kitchen counter, or watch my husband walk through the yard in his vestments before the dawn of Christmastide.
I will sit among familiar faces of the church homeless singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful. And realize that my faith is just as much about belief as it is about belonging. I’m holding on to both like a life raft while the ship sets sail for unchartered territory, His breath blowing our sails.
Jesus was born so he could die for you and me. Our life is costly, and our death is cheap. And when we surrender, we belong to Him whether the living room is full or empty; whether we worship under a steeple or the arm of a tree.
We nearly lost my daughter in a collision with a semi-truck the week before Thanksgiving. Sometimes it takes a brush within an inch of tragedy to realize what you’ve taken for granted. Like standing next to a friend tipping the wick of her candle into yours, the one who knows you like to eat Mexican food on Christmas Eve.
And instead of longing for what was, stomping my feet over what is, I’m nodding my head for the first time when I read Paul’s words. The veil hangs thin between heaven and earth.
I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. ~Philippians 4:11-13, MSG
Hi Shelly
You will be in the living rooms of our hearts this Christmas. This is what makes our Lord so special … that bond between us all.
Bless you
Mia
Mia, what a lovely thing to say, thank you.
This is so lovely, Shelly! Sad too. Your writing slays me. Your honesty makes me feel hopeful about the world. When will I ever get to hug you in person?
I hope it’s sooner than we know Heather. And you do the same for me, it’s why God brought us together as friends.
I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of sharing the fellowship of the table with each of you. So until that hug, I’ll be your one degree of separation. Probably there are others.
Shelly–21 years ago we moved here to Seattle after spending 18 years in our community and church in Central California. Four days before Christmas. It was the most unsettling, upsetting thing we’ve ever done, being ripped from our moorings and placed in a foreign (read–cold, hilly, rainy) land. My brother and sister-in-law who live here made the transition almost magical by purchasing a Christmas tree and lights and setting our newly rented home up for the holidays. They had arranged everything for us sight unseen and wouldn’t let us walk in the door until she had turned on the Christmas music.
Needless to say when we saw everything we were moved to tears.
It was a desolate first six months and a good number of years before we felt like we belonged anywhere so I can relate to your situation and the pain. (tho’ we’ve never been the ‘ousted’ ones. That, well, that is hard to fathom.)
Anyway——–
Thanks for sharing this.
I love how they did that for you. We are so far from any family here that the holiday’s take on a different meaning for us now. And its in these dark places of the soul that we see Him more clearly isn’t it? It’s the DNA that we share with everyone, that desire to belong.
Love where you took this piece, Shelly.
Alone, but not alone.
With you in spirit this Christmas . . . touching hearts, if not hands.
So glad you are walking this with me Kelli. Sending you a virtual hug.
Sometimes we feel like we are sitting in a life raft that was once moored to a huge ship. We have been cut lose into a vastness to great to understand. Yet we are in a life boat and we rock and weave through darkness and light and we wait with hope.
Whatever your boat lands–whether someone finds you and offers community to you this Christmas or whether you land on some shore unknown to bring community to others, I believe it will happen. I don’t have reason really to say this except that God wants what you and your beloved have to offer this world—especially now at this time of the year.
Merry Christmas my friend.
What beautiful imagery Dea, I saw myself out there in the boat waiting for Him to blow the sails. We are now part of a group of people planting a new work. I haven’t been this excited in four years about going to church and I’m hopeful community will return in time. Thank you for your encouragement, it means a lot to me.
Shelly, this ministry life is certainly not an easy one. Praying for an overwhelming sense of God’s Presence in your family this holiday season and that His love fills all the loneliness. Still rejoicing at His protection over your daughter.
Me too Elizabeth, still in awe about the way he saved her life that night. Thank you for your prayers. We ministry wives that understand each other without spoken words are a gift to each other when we link arms together.
Though you don’t know me well, I have just hiked/am hiking that path just a little ahead of you. I’m probably around that bend in the road you see before you and since we are both plodding forward you may never see me.
Know that I am leaning my candle over toward yours and passing along the flame. I will be praying for you through this Christmas season. I know how hard and lonely it can be…. and having to find new traditions too…
Thanks for the encouragement Sharon, its good to know someone is up ahead charting out the landscape, turning around to give the nod forward and tilting their candle into mine with a reassuring smile.
Hi Shelly, it is a tough place, where you are. Finding Christ in Christmas is journey we enjoy with others, yet when we choose or are forced to walk that path alone, it can lead to a joyous solitude of surrender. Ten months ago my family left church, walked out, and haven’t looked back. We meet in homes, in the park, wherever the spirit leads us. Prompted by a very nontraditional husband who unlike me was not raised in the church, he found the activities almost counter productive to reaching souls for Christ. So we meet with people who perhaps would never grace the doorstep of a temple and have found Christ in our simple gatherings. We have been asked if we have joined a movement, and our response is a vehement – NO! We are following the path that we believe Christ has set before us, and though lonely at times, it is enough. My prayers are with you and know that there are a multitude of us that read and are more than ‘touched’ by your art stories. Bless you and Merry Christmas!
“joyous solitude of surrender” – I’m hanging a shingle on that one today. It’s a phrase of expectancy and I like it. And I love the way you are expressing the incarnation of Christ so organically, its inspiring.
It can be daunting to walk this journey, yet He did so much more for us. Be strong Shelly and know there is a world wide community that awaits in hope with you! Have a blessed day.
Hi Shelly…I so appreciate your raw honesty here. And the more telling of your story. Especially about your Phoenix church. Sounds like a wonderful place. As you know by now, I am not currently in any ‘church’. I’m a Lone Ranger right now. So I understand somewhat what you are saying. I am glad to read in your comment below that you and H are newly involved in planting something exciting and challenging. I too, wish to tilt my candle next to yours this Christmas and pass along the family flame—the family of God! Isn’t it wonderful and amazing to think that, no matter where we are in our faith journey, we all travel the same road?! And we can send love and prayers across the miles. Wishing you and your family of four a joyous and peace-filled Christmas. Still giving “Thanks” for Murielle’s miracle.
That’s what I love about on-line friendships, no matter the distance we can stir each other up, carry one another in the arms of our prayers when life gets hard, rejoice when goodness spreads her tent. Thank you Jillie.
Beautiful, Shelly. That verse in Philippians (different translation) has been on my bathroom mirror for 10 years. It’s the first one I see in the morning and the last one I see at night. Whatever the circumstances…
Great idea Eileen, I need lots of repitition in my life, I may just follow your lead.
Here’s my candle of fellowship–all lit. Passing it on to you. Blessed Christmas, and may the reality of His Christmas truth overpower any of our needs to do, to be, or to contribute anything but submission and worship. This candle has no dripping wax nor the potentail of setting someone’s hair on fire. Pass it on! 🙂
Nodding my head and saying amen to what you said Lilly.
I picked up my tamales yesterday, Shelly, homemade by good Catholic women. If you want to come over, I’ll share.
You reminded me that I need to order mine Megan. Thanks for the invite, if I lived closer I would definitely take you up on it.