This Bittersweet Christmas

Good morning…

If we were to send out a Christmas card this year, we would likely share this sweet family photo from the September day our son Kyler married his amazing wife Chandler. What you would not see is the bitter of the hurricane sweeping through Charleston, S.C. two days before, or the bitter of my parents missing the wedding with my mom in the ICU following an unexpected surgery in Ohio, or the bitter of raging wars and the great, great losses many are grieving this Christmas morning.

Today I woke early with a weird word on my mind: bittersweet. I laid in bed for a long while and thought of all the bitter we are experiencing collectively across our globe. I also savored the sweet of simple joys and acts of kindness and God’s everlasting love rising to the top, always rising to the top. “Bittersweet,” I thought, “This Christmas is bittersweet.”

Then I got out of bed and opened my phone to a text from my dad sent at 2:26 am: “Your Mom was transported to the emergency room at Southwest hospital. She was very lethargic. She is in the ICU. They took her for a cat scan of her abdomen. MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

This bittersweet text is a source of deep prayer as this Christmas morning slowly, slowly shifts from darkness to light. There were shouts of joy intermingled with cries of sorrow (Ezra 3:13A, VOICE).

MERRY BITTERSWEET CHRISTMAS to you, my friends.

…Sue…