“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”
John 1:14
They were everywhere. Each flicker of the flashlight confirmed the task at hand was not complete. And my skin was crawling.
“Honey, do you need a drink?”
My dad’s offer of support, from a noticeable distance, felt appropriate given the task at hand. And the timing.
It was New Year’s Eve night, and this was our first holiday season as a two-household family. Earlier in the week, I’d spent Christmas without my children for the first time, and that New Year’s Eve morning, as I watched my daughter repeatedly and aggressively scratch her scalp, I received the dreaded confirmation that she had head lice.
The divorce, the lice, the offer of a stiff drink. It all felt on brand for the year drawing to a close that night.
Ten months earlier, our world fractured. We were knee-deep in legal realities and processes that were awful, protracted, and expensive, and there was no end in sight. The kids and I had traveled to my parents’ house that day to celebrate Christmas over the New Year’s holiday. After a long drive in traffic, we walked in their door, and somewhere through tears, I apologized for possibly bringing an infestation into their home.
The fact that they didn’t send us packing speaks to their generosity.
While my mom searched online for organic strategies for lice, revelers on TV were getting ready for the big celebration in Times Square. I sat on the floor surrounded by towels to be disposed of once the job was done, sleeping child’s head in my lap, trying to work the problem at hand:
Her hair was wet – internet tip #1.
I used a flashlight to find the nits – internet tip #2.
I carefully picked them out and put them in a cup of water, apparently to drown them – internet tip #3.
I’m only now forgiving the internet for not making us aware there are services you can pay to do what we did that night. Every time I thought I was making progress, I’d move another strand of hair only to see what felt like hundreds more. I was incredibly overwhelmed, the lice the most awful, heavy, and cruelly ironic punctuation on a devastating year.
“Have we not had enough already? There is NO way I can fix this all tonight.”
Dad’s timing was impeccable as he made the aforementioned offer. Mom quietly typed faster, scouring the internet for solutions.
“I have had enough. I cannot do this.”
Mom looked up from the computer. “There’s a lady on here suggesting we cover her entire head in a thick layer of mayonnaise.”
A wine cork released in the background. A glass was placed on a table nearby. They moved around me quietly troubleshooting while I cried and continued exploring her hair with a flashlight.
We settled on olive oil to smother the things – internet tip #5.
A bottle of EVOO later with a shower cap on her head to protect the bedding, in the early morning hours of the new year we moved the sleeping preschooler to bed. The next morning she padded into the kitchen looking like a slippery Oompa Loompa in her footie pajamas, poofy pink shower cap, and a sliver of oil running down her forehead.
Today when I think back on that night, I laugh at just how awful it was. And it makes my head itch. And then I laugh some more.
But humor was not at all in my line of vision that night or in the week’s leading into Christmas that year. So much felt lost. And sad. And broken. The weeks of the Christmas season placed the full weight of our new reality in my heart and on my shoulders. Shattered doesn’t even come close to describing the state of my heart that New Year’s Eve. The upending of our world and the choices made that year just about undid me. Celebrating Messiah at the lowest point of my life felt more like a forced acknowledgment of just how wide the cavern was between myself and heaven.
It turns out the most wonderful time of the year can feel very cold and cruel when life itself isn’t very wonderful. The loss of a loved one. Illnesses that don’t respond to treatment the way we’ve prayed. Financial realities where this is no release valve. Relationships that were supposed to stand the test of time but don’t. Brokenness hurts and surrounds us year-round. But there is something particularly painful about brokenness during the holidays. The gap between how things should be and the way they are seems to grow wider at Christmas.
Praise be to God He loves us so much He inserted Himself into the brokenness of this world to draw us to Him. We mercifully have a God who literally met us where we were, intersecting human history at the right time, in the right place, and in the most unexpected way. He made His entrance in the midst of the broken. He became flesh in a world where injustice was rampant, and humanity’s dire need for redemption was on full display. He came, not briefly to save, restore, and leave. No, he came to live among the brokenness. In the midst of it. Up close.
If you arrive at this season disappointed, heartsick, grieving, and overwhelmed, you are not alone. Hurting, broken humans are why He came. Our illusion of picture-perfect convinces us we are ready for the season when in reality, our lack of perfection is the reason we received the greatest gift of all time in the first place.
If this season hurts, if it feels like you cannot take another step with the harsh reality weighing on your shoulders, fall into Messiah. He came for you, the broken you. Not the pretend perfection we’d prefer to put on greeting cards. Your overwhelmed soul is not too heavy for Him. The undone version of you is why He came. Rest in Him during this season.
