McCardles Florist, Greenwich
Stanwich Women's Christmas Gathering
December 9, 2019
Who can resist a trip to McCardles during Christmas? It’s magical – almost like stepping into a Christmas snow globe or a Hallmark movie set. Sadly, life is no hallmark movie. We don’t always get the happy ending this side of the grave. But that’s EXACTLY what makes Christmas so miraculous. It represents our happy ending – the hope of heaven given to us through the birth of Christ.
Even so, we live in Advent holding the hope of heaven and the not yet simultaneously. I can’t tell you how daunting it is to follow Fleming Rutledge when discussing Advent and Christmas. I won’t be offering any deep theological insights. God blessed her with that gift. Mine is simply to share my story - my own kind of Hallmark movie based on harsh reality instead of sentimentality. It’s the story of how I learned to embrace the darkness of Advent, thereby making the brilliance of Christmas that much brighter. Of how I learned what a perfectly, imperfect Christmas looks like.
As women, I’m sure you can all relate to the pressure we put on ourselves to produce a Norman Rockwell Christmas for our families, creating memories and traditions that will last long after we’re gone. Mr. Rockwell reminds me of my dad who has an uncanny ability to only remember good things. Rockwell’s scenes are charming, as are my dad’s memories, but what isn’t visible is the messy process involved in the effort to craft them. Yet, if you could peak behind the canvas, the decorations and the wrapping, that’s exactly what you’d find. As much as we might like it to be, life isn’t tidy or orderly, and neither is Christmas – far from it.
Attempting to create the perfect Christmas isn’t for sissies or the faint of heart – it’s for the delusional because it doesn’t exist. Well, it does, but it doesn’t resemble the postcard version we put so much energy into orchestrating. Just witnessing the Herculean effort my husband spends transforming the outside of our house into a Christmas paradise exhausts me. You’d think he was trying to guide the Wise Men to New Canaan. The neighborhood may appreciate his Christmas spectacular as I’m sure Con Ed does, but it comes with its own challenges and is a messy project with tangles of lights and broken bulbs strewn all over.
The first Christmas set the stage for every imperfect, messy Christmas thereafter. Think about it. I’m sure traveling to Bethlehem on a donkey didn’t factor into Mary’s nesting instincts as she prepared for the arrival of her child. Giving birth in a dirty stable couldn’t possibly be what she imagined when she anticipated bringing God’s son into the world. I wonder how many times she questioned, “This is Your plan God? Seriously?” And we’ve been asking the same question ever since.
Childbirth is a messy ordeal. Childbirth amongst the animals even more so. Christ arrived in a mess and died in a mess. Yet here’s the paradox: Through the messiness of His life and death, Jesus infused and continues to infuse light, love, comfort and joy into a broken, frenzied world. The long-awaited Messiah arrived in an unexpected way – not wrapped in the glory many anticipated but swaddled in a feeding trough. He still arrives in our lives in unexpected ways – often wrapped in adversity. Some of our greatest blessings are born out of suffering, because hardships draw us closer to God as we lean into His presence and provision.
I lived that lesson when I was catapulted into His arms twelve years ago. Richard Rohr calls this phenomenon a Divine Ambush, and I couldn’t agree more because I was totally blindsided. Here’s the thing about a divine ambush, you’re surrounded on all sides, your paralyzed with fear. The only way out is up. The only viable option is surrender. I’ve seen people try to fight their way out, and it’s not pretty.
It’s funny, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast today, yet I can remember the smallest detail of December 18, 2007. At first, I attributed my symptoms to one too many Christmas parties. When they didn’t subside, I realized something was terribly wrong. Never being the proud owner of rock-hard abs, I now found one side of my stomach quite firm while the other side remained the doughy mass I’d come to know and love. I showed the doctor, and the look on her face confirmed that we were discussing something serious. Believe me, you never want to see your doctor panic, but that’s exactly what happened. She immediately sent me for a sonogram followed by a CAT scan, which confirmed that I was the proud parent of a basketball sized tumor. The official diagnosis was a ten-inch malignant tumor called a retroperitoneal liposarcoma. It’s been 12 years and I still have trouble pronouncing it.
After leaving the doctor’s office, I went directly to where most children go when they’re hurt – to a parent. At the time, my favorite place to visit and talk with God was in the chapel of my church. It’s quiet, peaceful, and you can feel His calming presence. I never failed to find comfort and rest there. I prayed – not for a miraculous cure, but for the courage and strength to face whatever challenges lay ahead. It being the Christmas season, I looked to Mary as an example and let my prayer be, “May it be to me as you wish.” I did add the caveat, but if you could wait until my kids graduate high school that would be even better. They were in middle school at the time.
In that chapel there is a large portrait of Jesus with one hand on his heart, and the other appears to be blessing you. His heart is radiating, drawing you into His loving embrace. Underneath is the simple inscription “Jesus, I trust in you.” It’s known by Catholics as The Divine Mercy. Whenever I find myself in difficult or unfamiliar circumstances (and this was certainly one of those), I use this picture as a visual and pray those simple words, “Jesus, I trust in you.” Well, I was about to find out just how much I trusted Him. Though the prayer is beautiful in its simplicity, it was now being put to the test. Will I only trust Him if I’m healed or if things go my way; or will I trust that whatever happens, He can and will help me – and my family – through it?
Scripture says faith is a gift from God. He was asking me to open that gift in a very real way, and I’m grateful. I never would have known the value of His gift or the depth of my faith if I never had to use it. Prior to that day, the faith I professed sounded good, but they were just words. It had never been challenged in the sense that I had to surrender everything – my life, my husband, my children, my future into His hands. It was that year that I could really appreciate how messy and perfectly imperfect that first Christmas was. Jesus was inviting me into the stable, and I want to tell you there is no better place to celebrate Christmas. What did I bring with me? My pain and fear, which He transformed into gold.
I spent Christmas Eve getting a biopsy. I can still see my Dad in his traditional red Christmas jacket sitting in the waiting room. I remember singing Christmas carols with him as we walked down the hall. The results would come in days later while the large extended family celebrated at our annual trip to family camp in the Poconos. How blessed I felt to be surrounded by family when getting the results. I was embraced in a cocoon of love.
Oddly, that year remains one of my favorite Christmas’ – not because of its perfection but specifically because of its brokenness. Thinking it might be my last actually made it my best! Christ was born in my heart that Christmas, and I can’t think of a messier place than the human heart. It was the birth of a new, intimate relationship with Jesus. In a way I can’t explain, my suffering connected me to His suffering and to the suffering of others.
During my first year at Bible Study many years before that infamous holiday, I was hosting a pre-Christmas luncheon. My leader noticed the manger on display and commented on the shepherd with a lamb on his shoulder. She explained how shepherds train sheep. If one keeps wandering off, he breaks its legs then carries it on his shoulders until it heals. By then the sheep is so attached to the shepherd, it never leaves his side again. As a newbie, I was horrified (I think I might have even choked on the Christmas cookie I was enjoying). I certainly did not find this conversion formula appealing. Now that I’ve been carried for so many years I understand its wisdom - though I still wouldn’t recommend using it to attract anyone to Christianity. If I wasn’t in my own home I might have bolted after that tutorial. God doesn’t cause our brokenness, but He definitely uses it to draw us into a unique intimacy that can’t be achieved any other way.
I’ll spare you the long boring details of my 12-year journey with cancer. It’s incurable, and that may sound awful, but it’s a blessing because it keeps me tethered to Christ in a way I wouldn’t have been able to sustain without it. God answered my prayer and then some because my children have now graduated from college! I’ve had four surgeries to date and am missing more parts than my old Mr. Potato Head.
After the mother of all operations four years ago, the surgeon explained that there would be no more surgeries. Too much scar tissue. However, when I went for a scan last month, he shocked me by agreeing to operate again so the story’s not over – and won’t be until Christ determines it’s time for me to come home. In October 2008, the doctors gave me six months. Obviously, God had other plans. Regardless of the timing, He’s already written my happy ending and that’s no fairytale or schmaltz. It’s His promise to eventually, “wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev 21:4)
But until that time comes, I’m living in the in-between as are all of you. The time between Christ’s first and second coming – a perpetual season of Advent. Advent is a time of waiting, as is much of life, and one of the most valuable lessons I learned through cancer is the ability to wait, to be at peace with the mystery of unknowing, to sit in the darkness and listen to what it has to teach me. What did I learn? That I never need to face any situation alone and to fully grasp that God will always be enough regardless of my circumstances. That was my Christmas gift that year and one I have kept close to my heart ever since.
As I mentioned, I wasn’t cured – at least not in a worldly sense. but the surgery Christ performed on my heart that Christmas did remove any doubts about my faith and replaced it with His steadfast love. Unfortunately, He left all my character flaws in place so my name still appears on Santa’s Naughty list more often than I’d like. However, the God is Enough lesson covers those issues as well. That’s the miracle of the Gospel. As Tim Keller teaches, “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” Darkness and light intertwined in unexpected beauty. Without the one, we’d never appreciate the other.
Truth be told, that fateful day in December of 2007 wasn’t the first or last time our family will face a Christmas crisis. Aside from my own multiple surgeries, there was the death of my nephew from an overdose, my sister’s diagnosis with breast cancer and her most recent diagnosis with throat cancer last Christmas. On a broader front, I just learned a friend has only two months to live. Another just received an alarming medical report. Two friends are having surgery this week. The prayer requests I receive daily cover troubles of all kinds. Sadly, suffering and tragedy don’t take holidays. Life goes on as usual: people die, the news from the doctor isn’t good, the dreaded surgeries still occur. And those are just samples from the emails I received this week. They don’t even take into account the state of our nation or global events. This world is messy, so again, I wonder why we expect Christmas to be any different?
Before 2007 I never appreciated the role of advent. In fact, other than lighting the Advent wreath every night, I didn’t think much about it at all. Even that ritual was messy and imperfect. My beautiful porcelain nativity candle holders are chipped and broken from years of sibling squabbles over whose turn it was to light the candle. This battle continued LONG after you’d expect children to age out of such behavior. By that time, the angels had been de-winged, Mary and Joseph were missing limbs, and one of the Wise Men was beheaded. I still use it despite its imperfections, or maybe because of them, as a reminder that it’s in the midst of conflict that we need the hope of Christmas to shine the brightest.
Contrary to what you might think, I still find myself eagerly joining the race to Christmas that begins as soon as the turkey is cleared from the table. But that leap from Thanksgiving into Christmas festivities fails to take the necessary time to acknowledge the messiness in the world. There was an excellent article in The NY Times on December 1st entitled Before Christmas, Face the Darkness. The author notes that “to observe Advent is to lean into an almost cosmic ache: our deep wordless desire for things to be made right and the incompleteness we find in the meantime. It reminds us that joy is trivialized if we do not first intentionally acknowledge the pain and wreckage of the world.”
That essay brought to mind a note I wrote last year to a friend who edits my writing. I apologized for getting an Advent piece to her late. I wrote, “Sorry for the delay. Rushing through it so couldn’t give it the time it deserves.” Despite everything I’ve learned, I’m still racing through Advent not giving it the attention it deserves. It’s hard to avoid, which is why I’ve always treasured this event. It provides a quiet moment to honor the somberness of Advent before the chaos begins in earnest.
As much as we resist it, Thanksgiving is the launching pad for Christmas. But is there any better way to enter Advent than with thanks? I shared the following prayer this Thanksgiving because it illustrates how we can be grateful for more than just the good things in our life. In hindsight, we discover that some of our greatest blessings arrive disguised as tears – or tumors. Here’s a sampling, but I’m sure you can all add your own.
"Thank you, God for the times You have said "no." They have helped me depend on You so much more.
Thank you, God, for unanswered prayer. It reminds me that You know what's best for me, even when my opinion differs from Yours.
Thank you, God, for the physical pain You've allowed in my life. It has helped me more closely relate to Your sufferings on my behalf.
Thank you, God, for the uncertainties I've experienced. They have deepened my trust in You.
Thank You, God, for the tears I have shed. They have kept my heart soft and mold-able.
Thank You, God, for the times I haven't been able to control my circumstances. They have reminded me that You are sovereign and on the throne.
Thank You, God for my family and friends who have been with me and stood by me, they have truly been your visible face.
Thank You, God, for the greatest gift You could ever give me: forgiveness through Your perfect Son's death on the cross.
And thank You, God, not only for my eternal salvation, but for the salvation You afford every day of my life as You save me from myself, my foolishness, my own limited insights, and my frailties in light of Your power and strength."
Our Savior’s arrival changed everything and nothing at the same time. There’s still pain and suffering, yet there is also light and love. There’s a promise of complete restoration along with a not yet. I can say the same for the Christmas of 2007. It changed everything and nothing. I still have cancer, the world is still a mess, but the way I live my life was changed forever. My world view was turned upside down. How else could I view pain as profit? As Avery Dulles explains, “The incarnation does not provide us with a ladder by which to escape the ambiguities of life and scale the heights of heaven. Rather it enables us to burrow deep into the heart of planet earth and find it shimmering with divinity.” That first messy, perfectly imperfect Christmas allows us to experience Emmanuel, God with us - heavenly moments amidst the chaos of living in the in-between.
One last thing, I don’t want you to leave thinking I’ve given up decorating or merrymaking. That couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, my merrymaking got even merrier but in a different way. It’s no longer fueled by eggnog. Christ’s joy is now my cocktail of choice.
My decorating is done more sparingly and lightheartedly. Just thinking of what I used to do brings on anxiety. I was insane. Every ornament needed to be straight, every wreath hung just so. The painstaking effort I put into my production still gives me the heebee geebees. Getting sick liberated me from the tyranny of perfection. I finally realized through my pain that Christ already created the perfect Christmas. He just wants us to experience it anew not just once in December but every day of the year. When you choose to put aside the planning, the shopping, the decorating – even briefly - and focus on Christ, you too will experience the ‘perfect’ Christmas – one filled with peace and joy, an oasis amidst the pain and chaos of our messy world because in our brokenness His presence shines even brighter.
The next few weeks we are called to prepare our hearts for Christ, and I can’t think of a more prepared heart than a broken one. Whatever mess you may be facing, let Christmas remind you that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.” God will always be enough.