No Ow

It's Christmas Eve Eve.  How are you feeling?

Stressed?

Blessed?

Hurried?

Worried?

Happy?

Sappy?

Mad?

Glad?

Sorry, enough with the rhyming.

The point is, there are a lot of ways to be feeling.

Some of us feel fantastic.  Some of us feel not so fantastic.  Some of us are swinging wildly between the two.

I'm finding myself in the third category.  If you've read my last couple of blog posts you might be suspecting that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).  After a tiny bit of research I am starting to suspect the same.  

It basically boils down to this:  

sunshiny days = happy Tara

a few cloudy gray days in a row = depressed Tara

This month has had more than it's fair share of clouds.  And so I have had some rough days.  As much as I hate to admit it, the way I feel is directly linked to the sunshine.

And, believe me, I've talked to The Son about this.  Because I know that I need Him even more than I need the sun he created.

Sometimes, when the actual sun is not out, sunshine comes in the form of a person. Or people.

That's what happened for me on Friday.  I've got this lovely friend, Adrianne.  And this other lovely friend, Wanda.  Friday happened to be Adrianne's birthday and so Wanda and I had made plans to take her out to celebrate.

I didn't want to go.  I wanted to go home from work and lay on the couch and not talk to anyone.  But I couldn't back out.  And I'm so glad I didn't.  These girls were like sunshine to my soul.

We did a progressive dinner.  And laughed hysterically everywhere we went.  Our first stop was the Federal Taphouse for appetizers.

We have this other friend, Courtney.  Who lives in Oregon.  But we had a fourth chair so we pretended she was there with us.

You're looking at wings, french fries fried in duck fat (I didn't even know this was a thing.  Thanks for the tip, Mitchell), and a plate of breads and spreads.  We had happy taste buds.

We walked a few blocks to The Pressroom where we had dinner.  And worked on a plan to become food critics so we can eat lots of deliciousness and get paid for it.

I mostly forget what was on this pizza besides fresh rosemary and red onion.  It was awesome.  Just take my word for it.

We then moved on to the convention center.  There were reindeer right inside the door just begging to be kissed.

We took the elevator to the 19th floor where you can look out over the whole city.  It was beautiful.

Then we returned to the first floor and had dessert in The Penn Square grill.  I forget the exact name of this thing (maybe I wouldn't make a stellar food critic) but it had words like: apple, hot, glazed, cinnamon, honey, ice cream.  Yum.

Fast forward to today.  It's Christmas Eve Eve.  And it's cloudy.  

Again.

I read these words this morning from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp: 

"The wilderness offers you grace: we are most prepared for Christ, for Christmas, when we confess we are mostly not prepared...He comes for you in the wildernesses.  You are most prepared for Christmas when you are done trying to make your performance into the gift and instead revel in His presence as the Gift.  That is all there is left in these last days of the Advent road - the sacredness of His presence saturating everything."

Jake was singing a Christmas carol this morning.  He was singing The First Noel.  Except he doesn't know the word 'noel'.  And he interpreted it as two words.  "No ow."  

I'm longing for a Christmas with no ow.  All you have to do is turn on the news to know that many people are experiencing a Christmas with pain.

And maybe you aren't on the news but your Christmas season hasn't been all tinsel and eggnog.  There's broken relationships, broken dreams, broken down bodies.

Or maybe you are just simply missing the sun.

The good news is this:  there's ALWAYS the Son.  No matter what circumstances you face, Jesus doesn't leave.  Matthew tells us this: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him 'Immanuel' - which means, "God with us."

God. With us.

God.  With us.

It never fails to still me.  My breathing slows and my heart runs out my eyes.  Jesus has chosen to be with us.  With me.

Jake was singing another song.  One he made up.  The tune was unrecognizable but the words were powerful.

"Glory in the highest, He loves everyone."

Merry Christmas!