Back in 2007, I was a young mom of one. On December 3rd I found out I was soon going to be the mom of two and I was overjoyed! That sweet tiny life was immediately loved and cherished. What could be better than celebrating this coming baby during Christmas – a holiday dedicated to celebrating the coming of Jesus as a baby? But, a couple of weeks later, that life was gone. I mourned deeply the loss of my baby. I had already dreamed of the life we would share, but God had other plans. Celebrating that Christmas was very bitter sweet that year. On the one hand, I loved watching my daughter’s joy in the season and spending time with those I loved. On the other hand, it was hard to celebrate the birth of one Baby while grieving the loss of my own.

Fast forward one year, December 3rd, 2008, I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, and strong baby boy! My heart was filled with so much love and joy I didn’t know how I could contain it. What a precious gift! My arms were full that Christmas. There was something so precious about holding a new baby while celebrating the birth of THE baby, who came to save the world. Holding my son while imagining Mary holding hers was a whole new connection to the story. My heart was so thankful for the gift of the baby in my arms, but even more so for the gift of the Baby born in a manger long ago.

But…I still held the grief of the baby that was gone so soon. The life so short and yet always remembered. How could I hold such loss and such joy all at once? How could I hold and enjoy what was now, while in sorrow, longing for a future reunited with what I had lost?

Truthfully, I have always felt a certain melencholy at Christmas. Even as a child I remember feeling it, though I have always loved Christmas and all of the traditions around it. I have many beautiful happy memories of this season…and some heartbreaking ones too. There is this feeling of being pulled in both directions that has at times felt impossible. How do I hold both? The joy and the sorrow? The highs of anticipation and the lows of sadness? The enjoyment of what is and the feeling of longing for something else?

But…isn’t that actually what Christmas really is? We celebrate the beautiful, miraculous birth of Jesus. God becoming flesh and fulfilling His promise of sending a Savior. It is worth setting aside time to rejoice and be grateful and share that joy with others. But it should also fill our hearts with longing. Christmas, in all of its promise of being “the best time of the year” and full of glitter and lights and gifts and enjoyment, was never meant to fully satisfy. The longing in my heart is purposeful. While celebrating what was and is…my heart is meant for more. My heart is meant to long for what is to come. The connection between Jesus coming the first time and Jesus coming again are inextricably tied together. Christmas cannot satisfy my soul…but I know the One who can. He came, and I rejoice in that! He is yet to come…and I long for that. For all that He promised will be fulfilled in the end.

When the four hundred years of God’s “silence” was broken by a newborn cry, God’s promise from the garden to send a Savior was fulfilled. The Christ-child brought fulfillment and salvation and forgiveness…and hope. But isn’t longing at the center of hope? A longing and a looking towards something this is not yet, but that will be. In Hebrews it says that our faith seals our hope and keeps it looking toward the only One who can satisfy (“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1). There was hope fulfilled in the birth of Jesus, and there is hope yet to be fulfilled when He comes again.

What that tells me is that in my dark moments of the soul, when I feel this struggle inside of me. When the sorrow and longing threaten to overwhelm my joy. Instead of turning to despair, I can instead choose to turn to hope. My longings and the weight of the sorrow of this world have a purpose and that is to remind me that there is much that is to come and I can funnel all of that through the hope of the gospel. Through the hope that was born in a manger long ago. The best is yet to come!

So, we live in this in-between. Of what was and is…and what is to be. Is it any wonder then, that there is this conflict I feel? Someday, all will be resolved. All will be fulfilled. All will be complete. Until then, we celebrate and we also long with anticipation…and we hold both with hope.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13