Christ is Being Born

I desperately wanted to share a Christmas Eve message this year. A message about how the birth pains aren’t why a baby arrives. A message about how it’s actually the arrival of the baby that necessitates the pain. A message about how birth and new life only come after pain. A message about how life is always pulling us into its fullness, and how productive and promising the pain actually is.

I wanted to remind the world that there’s great joy on the other side of pain. On the other side of suffering. On the other side of grief & loss & death. When you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to imagine.

I would have never chosen this liminal space. Most people don’t willingly leave orientation for disorientation. The known for the unknown. But we do get to choose the next move. The one out of disorientation.

Sometimes we choose to stay in disorientation. Suffering. Complaining. Resisting. We end up victims and villains lost in liminal space.

But we have the choice to move forward. We don’t have to stay stuck in the chaos. We actually get to choose what we do with the pain. With the loss. With the death & divorce & diagnoses & pandemics that lead us here into liminal space. We choose to get lost in disorientation, or take it all and remake it into something new. A new orientation.

I have found hope and joy and love over here.

Alongside the pain. Even in the same breath.

Both|and. And both are a part of this Christmas. The joy abounds on the other side of the pain. Keep going. You’re almost there. Christ is being born.