Hard Feelings Don't Always Point To Wrong Choices

​Just over 5 years ago, I walked away from a challenging marriage. I own my fair share of the challenges. I always will.

I remember vividly that first Christmas after leaving. I remember thinking just how much different life would look the following Christmas. And by different, I mean I had visions of a much better life. At least better by my definitions of better at the time.

And yet, all these Christmases later, that better has not come close to materializing.

I suppose that is why Christmas continues to be the hardest day of the year for me - and why the day after Christmas may be my favorite day of the year - the day when I experience an overwhelming sense of relief.

Phew. I'm glad that is over.

Christmas morning is when I always ask myself the loudest - did I do the right thing? Which is absolutely the wrong morning to ask myself that. It's the easiest morning of the year to be so overwhelmed by the challenges I am left with in the leaving that I can forget the challenges that existed in the staying.

And yet - I am human - so I do ask...

I find myself wondering this morning, did Mary experience something similar? Surely when she made the decision to accept God's invitation to become the mother of Jesus, she had high hopes for what life would be like living it as the mother of the son of God.

The mother of the son of God - surely all roads would be paved with gold.

And yet there she stood, at the foot of the cross, witnessing her son's crucifixion. Not a road paved with gold. Witnessing that little baby in a manger being so misunderstood, so rejected, so murdered in a most excruciating way.

Did she wonder - did I do the right thing accepting God's call? Was the choice that once looked like a manger scene really worth the price of this torture scene?

I honestly doubt that Mary wondered such a thing. I think she knew she made a faithful and necessary choice, and yet still lived with a deep human ache because of it. Her obedience didn't cancel the cost. Her trust didn't erase the grief. Two things were true at once: she was inside God's will, and her heart sometimes broke there.

Today is an easy day to wonder if I did the right thing.

Today is an easy day to wonder what if.

Today is an easy day to ponder many things.

But all the pondering and wondering is quite irrelevant. For I am here. Here another Christmas morning. Here not because I have failed. Here not because the things I have hoped for on this Christmas morning are the wrong things to have hoped for. I am here because even though God does not abandon us in our various decisions, even the most right of decisions can lead us through lonely places.

Mary's life reminds me that God can be present inside our stories that don't feel the way we hoped they'd feel.

That faithfulness and pain are not opposites.

A soul that feels the ache of how costly a decision can be isn't always an indication yes was the wrong answer. And I don't have to wait until the day after Christmas to understand that.

Merry Christmas to all. If you too may be living inside the tension between choices and outcomes today, tensions that may feel challenging, please know, the baby in a manger came to be with us INSIDE the tension, not the day after Christmas when the tension may begin to subside.

Cling to that.

Cling to him.

The baby in a manger, the man on the cross.