Alternative fail??

This year I decided I would do an alternative Christmas much to the dismay and worry of my friends and family. I decided I would set myself apart from all the familiar trappings of Christmas and draw a line over 'fitting in' to other's plans because I lacked the courage to make my own. I decided that joining the tables of other's would feel like being a 'cuckoo in the nest'. Joining something that was 'theirs' rather than something that was mine. If it sounds selfish and ungrateful, it probably came across like that too. That wasn't my intention at all.

Also, being around the beauty of what kids and family brings was also too much to see in the face of what was lacking in my own life and the absence of what this year brought.

As the only single sister in the family, I normally just tagged along with my mum and dad and their plans for Christmas festivities and when mum died, I became my dad's plus one, keeping him company and trying to fill the void of mum not being there. This year we lost dad too and it just felt like their was no one to tag to and perhaps it was time to use the pain of absence to draw a line and create my own traditions.

There were many pleas not to hide myself away and be alone. Worry at the potential destructive nature of doing so given a long personal history of anxiety, depression and love affair with melancholy. Their concerns were well founded and not without merit but I really believed there was significance in separating myself from the familiar.

I was astounded and deeply moved at the several offers to sit at alternative Christmas dinner tables and the welcome people extended towards me. That in itself restored my fractured sense of being wanted.

Plan A was to relocate myself out of my physical environment to a beautiful little cottage in Cushendall where I could reconfigure my emotional default of running to people and using them to distract myself from the perpetual drone of a million thoughts running round my head and as a diversion from the impact of many emotional shit storms of my life.

Many of you that know me will know that I am extremely relational as a person but the down side of that is that people can become 'empty wells' and places to run instead of running to Jesus. I planned to try and address this too, removing all possibilities by planning alone time with only me and Jesus. Walks on the beach listening to worship music, singing my heart out and talking to Jesus, asking those profound questions I've been too afraid to contemplate, hoping that with the security blanket of 'people' removed I might actually stop avoiding Jesus.

Unfortunately, Plan A didn't happen and I didn't have Plan B.

One week before said planned retreat I got sick. Very sick. I spent the week prior to going, sick in bed but determined to push through. I got in the car during a perceived lull in coughing and travelled to Cushendall. It seemed everything was to be an uphill battle and after arriving 4 hours later than I had planned only to find an issue with gaining entry to the cottage. Another 30 minutes and I was in, offloading half my house that I brought with me "just in case" including art supplies, books, food, writing, most of which was never touched!

The next day, Christmas eve, I planned to go to Causeway Coast Vineyard for their service. Big mistake..... silly, silly me! I arrived on the dot, the place packed out and eventually managed to get space near the front aided by the very helpful usher. I then took a cursory look around and everywhere I looked were families and babies and people clearly deeply connected. It was then, just then I felt absence, hope deferred, disconnection and loss. The sense of missing out was tangible. I drove home a little more numb and anaesthetised.

The rest of the time away consisted of lots of sickness, staying in bed, confusion between day and night and never once left the house after that day at CCV. It's been a long time since I've been so sick and was bemused at the poor timing.

So, I packed the car once again and headed home, dejected, lost, and feeling like a complete failure.

My car, being the place I process most stuff and do my deep thinking in is where I had my first poignant conversation with Jesus. It was on the way home and very simplistic. It asked the question "Is this it?" "Is this all there is for me?"

I felt hopeless and more than slightly distraught at the seemingly emptiness I faced in a thing called "life". I wondered what it was all about and felt disappointed at my options that didn't seem very much like choices.

As I executed these utterances into the air hoping they would find the ear of God and that He would be listening, I felt a response drop into my spirit. It said "Jan, you are asking all the wrong questions?"

It is not what this world has for you that is 'purpose', but what you bring to this world? You do have choices. You can choose what you bring. You can choose what abilities, talents, posture and representation you bring and you can choose the legacy you leave.

It's your choice. That's the challenge.