When Christmas Hurts & Heals

Hey everyone! This blog belongs to the “Advent Series” that’ll run from December 1st to January 19th. In this series of fictional short stories, I’ll be writing from different points of view, exploring how folks from various walks of life—from college grads to business executives to those in recovery—articulate why the meaning of Christmas, “God is with us,” matters to the people they come across. Through these fictional stories, I’ll be engaging with examples of how to have conversations (or not) about Advent in a variety of scenarios. Enjoy!

NOTE: This story deals with church wounds, such as public humiliation, so if you’re not comfortable reading that kinda stuff right now, waiting for next week’s blog is probably a good idea!

Alan sat in his car, unable to make himself turn the key in the ignition. He tried to be kind to himself like his counselor had been teaching him, but he couldn’t stop the thought from forming:

Thirty-two years old, and you can’t even drive to church on Christmas? Wow…

He shook his head and let out a shaky exhale. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Outside, a few scattered snowflakes drifted down hesitantly, like they weren’t sure they wanted to touch the ground. One landed on his windshield and melted.

“I can do this,” Alan said aloud to himself. “I can do this, and I want to do this.” He turned the car on and the engine rumbled to life. As the car warmed, his drumming on the steering wheel became faster and faster until he finally swore, put the car in reverse, and peeled out of the driveway. He slowed down as he exited the neighborhood, watching out for patches of ice on the road.

He passed few cars on the way; on Christmas day, most people were already where they needed to be, especially at this time of the morning. He wondered if any of the people he passed were also on the way to church. At a red light, he started to really worry. Was he dressed appropriately? Should he have worn a suit? His counselor had told him that most churches weren’t like the one he grew up in, and didn’t require everyone in formal wear. He tried to convince himself that dress pants and a shirt were fine. But what if they turned him away at the door? Or, worse, they let him in and everyone laughed?

The urge to attend a church service after nearly ten years had come up unexpectedly last week.

“Really?” his counselor, Tim, had asked. “Do you know where you want to go?”

“Yeah,” Alan had replied. “There’s this one not far from my house. I pass it on my way to work.”

“What is it about this church that caught your attention?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alan had replied. “I just thought it looked nice.” This wasn’t entirely true. A few days earlier, on the drive to work, the big sign out front had a new message:

Christmas isn’t wonderful for everyone. Jesus knows that.

Alan fidgeted on the couch across from Tim. “I just think…with it being Christmas and all…it could be a good idea to go. Just for Christmas.”

After some back and forth about logistics, the clothing, and his feelings, Tim had asked a harder question. “Do you think you have the urge to go back because of your mother passing this year?”

Alan hadn’t answered. But he’d thought that yes, that probably had something to do with it. But he didn’t want to think about that right now, especially as he pulled up to the St. Luke’s parking lot. It was mostly full, people weaving between parked cars and large families and older couples with walkers making their way to the sidewalk. Chatter filled the air, the loud, comfortable kind that might be found at a family reunion. Alan watched a toddler, refusing to wear a coat, get swept up by a mother and brought inside. He found he couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t been close with his mom, not in years, but the absence still hurt like a wound. Like her, just existing in the world, was an anchor, and he now was left adrift.

Alan waited until the greeters had left the door and the piano could be heard inside. He hesitated in the parking lot, then paused on the front steps, which had been salted. He felt like a child. He felt like an old man. It was Christmas morning, and all he could feel was pain and fear. It was hardly the ‘most wonderful time of the year.’

He glanced over at the church’s sign:

Christmas isn’t wonderful for everyone. Jesus knows that.

He took a deep breath. The door was silent as he opened it and slipped inside.

The first thing he noticed was that it was warm. He shrugged his coat off and held it tightly against his chest. The anteroom smelled like lemon verbena cleaner and the peculiar sort of smell that older churches have—like dust and glass. Does glass have a smell? Alan’s heart was beating too fast. St. Luke’s was very different from the church he grew up in; this church had stained glass windows separating the anteroom from the congregation, it smelled like lemons, and it was warm. But as the piano played and the people sang Angels We Have Heard on High it felt too much like…church. Like a preacher behind a pulpit and a chorus of amen.

“I can do this,” he whispered to himself. “I want to do this.”

He slipped into the main room and sat down in the furthest pew so quickly he was sure someone noticed. But no one did, and as the seconds ticked by with no one talking to him, or accosting him, he began to look around.

Everyone except the very old people were standing. They’d moved on to singing Joy to the World, and some of the toddlers were jumping on the pews. His pew was empty, praise God, and far above him, past the altar and the pulpit, light streamed through a stained glass picture of the nativity. It was blue and yellow and green, and beautiful. When the congregation sat and people went up to the altar and spoke, Alan intellectually knew they were moving through the announcements, the scripture reading, the sermon, but he couldn’t pay attention.

“And now, Gabriel will be coming up to read Scripture for us this morning…”

Alan tuned out. He didn’t mean to, especially on Christmas, but the sound turned to white noise in the background, and all he could think about was church. His church. The church his mother took him to for his entire childhood, which was far away in another state, but still occupied so many of his thoughts. How you were turned away if you weren’t dressed formally enough. How every holiday was a chance for the pastor to remind them of how the world wanted to corrupt them and eat their souls. How books, movies, the media were going to send them to hell. How it was this congregation’s job to stand firm in the Lord and reject the outside world.

How when Alan, then sixteen, was detained by cops for smoking weed in the school parking lot, the pastor next Sunday preached on the evil of drugs while staring at Alan the entire time. How he couldn’t move, face burning, wanting the earth to swallow him up.

How he later found out his mother was the one to tell the pastor.

He vaguely heard a voice from far away: “We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”

Hardly aware of his own body, Alan left, walking past the anteroom, and less sat than collapsed on the front steps. He tried breathing in slowly, and exhaling slowly, like his counselor had taught him. He wasn’t a child anymore. He was an adult.

It was hard to convince himself of that. It was Christmas morning, and he was alone. You’re alone, the mean voice whispered to him. You’re—

A bell rang, clear and true, from high up in the church. Alan looked up, startled. It rang again, pealing out over the parking lot and beyond. The swell of noise from inside the church grew louder, and soon the congregation was spilling out the front doors. Alan found he couldn’t get up, and so he stared between his shoes, hoping no one would notice him.

Of course, that didn’t happen. A hand on his shoulder had him looking up again, but it was an older man using Alan’s shoulder to help him sit down next to Alan on the salted steps. He sighed and rubbed his hands together. He had white hair and a plaid shirt with a name tag that read Gabriel. Alan waited for him to say something. Alan waited for him to offer to pray, to cast the demons of anxiety out. Alan waited for him to try and bring them back into the church to talk to the pastor.

Gabriel did none of those things. He just sat next to Alan and looked out at the parking lot, where people were gathering and talking. Some of the children ran around with cookies, sliding on the ice, smearing crumbs and icing on each other. A dad swung his young son up and over onto his shoulders, laughing the entire time. Another child, an older girl, had fallen, and her mother dabbed a handkerchief on her skinned knee while she cried. No one told her to be quiet. No one told her she couldn’t be sad on Christmas. This would have never happened at Alan’s old church. He would’ve been shushed, smacked on the hand, and told to smile. But this girl was helped up by her mother and given a bandaid, comforted when it hurt.

Alan started crying. Once he started, it was hard to stop, and he cried quietly in his hands, missing his mother and hating her a little bit too, angry at God and wanting to hear his voice. The older man, Gabriel, sat by him the whole time, saying nothing, listening to Alan’s grief and the clear, high sound of the church bells ringing, ringing, ringing.