My prayer candle, lit weeks ago at the start of advent, flickers in the darkness of the early morning. My breathing is slow and steady and my favorite blanket feels particularly soft and warm tucked around me. Today I am choosing to push the check list and tasks to the side and let myself just be, noticing and listening to the silence.
The memories of Christmases past come easily, prompted by the stockings hanging nearby. The year Libby was born, we needed new stockings and I wanted them all to match so she would always know she belonged. The stockings previously belonging to the “original three” were over a decade old and any single new stocking would have been an obvious change. I smile as I think about two years later, when those four matching stockings were no longer enough because Elly had come. It was not at all what I’d expected when I bought the four matching red velvet stockings in December of 2004.
This year, the eight stockings that hang on my mantle tell a tender story, one filled with hope and resurrection, and held with care.
To be present to what is happening in my life right now, I find that I must also be present to what has happened in the past. I am moment by moment remembering what has been and embracing what has come. I think this is what happens for most of us at Christmas. The past feels closer, more easily accessible. It tugs at us from decorations passed down through generations, and traditions held throughout the years, music that is familiar and holiday gatherings.
It is not always an easy time of year. We feel the ache of our losses, faces missing at our tables, and hopes unrealized. There is a loneliness that ebbs and flows right through the center of what are supposed to be joyous moments. We are left wondering, and sometimes wrestling, with God and His goodness, and the story of His son. I have known years where I wasn’t sure God was telling a good story in my life, years when I questioned if I could bear the ache required to hold onto hope.
Over the years, my faith has deepened, and it has been carved inside of me through sorrow and loss. I don’t relish those experiences, but they are part of my unfolding journey with God and His son.
My life does not work apart from a wondering, wrestling relationship with God.
God’s goodness has come to me in unconventional, unexpected, and sometimes unbelievable ways. A cold cave, on the back end of an inn keeper’s property in the middle of a city overrun with people for a census feels about right. “No room” for Mary to give birth in the midst of warmth, safety, and comfortable surroundings rings truer to my own journey with hope and what it looks like to birth it.
Today my heart is grateful for where resurrection is the truer story this Christmas, and I can feel it and savor it because it wasn’t that long ago that Christmas was nestled squarely inside what felt like death. I am thankful for my steady and slow breaths, the warmth of friendship, and the eight stockings hanging on my mantle.
Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, and the substance of things unseen. It comes from believing that as God has been in the past, so He will be again.
For all who wait
For all who hunger
For all who’ve prayed
For all who wonder
Behold your King
Behold Messiah
Emmanuel, Emmanuel
Tracy Johnson is a lover of stories, a reluctant dreamer and the Founder of Red Tent Living. Married for over 30 years, she is mother to five kids and a pastors wife. She loves quiet mornings with hot coffee, rich conversations and slowly savored meals at her favorite restaurants. She is awed that God chose her to mother four girls having grown up with no sisters. She writes about her life and her work here.
This…”My life does not work apart from a wondering, wrestling relationship with God.” Such powerful words that sink deep into me this early Christmas Eve. Thank you, Tracy, for your wisdom, insight and vision of hope that call me to His feet. Blessings and love to you and your incredible family. Christine
Merry Christmas sweet Christine. Praying for many beautiful moments and that Jesus comes in unexpected ways for you too. ❤️
I am so Blessed by Red Tent Living and its many writers. Thank you Tracy for your vision, your love of story and for.providing this space for many who share the gifted expression of their journeys.
May you and your family have a Blessed precious Christmas.
Marie
You are so welcome Marie, thank you for being part of our precious community. Blessings to you as well.
Tracy, second what Marie said. Thank you for your vision to allow many women of different background and ages tell their stories to spur each on to see more clearly the abundance we partake. Joy and heartache, struggle and victory. All under the awareness our Savior watches and groans and rejoices with each and every human being. I loved this; “This year, the eight stockings that hang on my mantle tell a tender story, one filled with hope and resurrection, and held with care.” You are a woman of great faith. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you too Becky. I am grateful for the ways your faith and the risks you have chosen to take with Dan have played a part in my own faith journey.
Hi Tracy – Thank you for writing this piece.! I loved reading the part about having enough stockings, and then not enough – so you purchased all new – and then not enough again, so once again, you bought all new! The line, “To be present to what is happening in my life right now, I find that I must also be present to what has happened in the past,” felt profound to me. Each of us a compilation of our experiences – good and bad – molding us into who we are currently. The surprises of life – part of the molding as well. Thank you for creating Red Tent Living – for hanging a stocking for the writers out here who take part in the wrestling and celebration of life as well.
It is so true, we are a compilation, good and bad. I wish I would have had a community women when I was younger leading me in the wrestling and wondering that the writers here exhibit with such generosity. Thanks for playing a part in that with us. You are a blessing.
Oh friend, yes! Such a beautiful piece. Thank you for writing. Love you always.