Tag Archives: Advent

Finding Joy in the Season

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As much as I wish to fully embrace the Christmas season, I find as much sorrow in the Holiday as I find joy.  I can feel internal pressure to feel and act a certain way that doesn’t always match my state of being.  The expectations of being loving, building smokeprecious memories, having enough money, and seeing everyone I care about can be overwhelming at times, especially when I compare to what I think others are doing.  I can believe that I am inadequate, different, or missing the mark somehow.  Add the spiritual pressures, and I can think that somehow my God isn’t taking care of me.  Often the Holiday can appear to be a Holiday meant for the privileged.  Those with a large family, good health, money to spend and beautiful homes decorated with all the festivities and smell of Christmas cookies.  It is easy to get lost in what I am supposed to be and sometimes miss the greater meaning.

Earlier this year, I remember in a moment of despair praying “I just want to be happy”.  I felt exhausted trying to handle my own emotions, physical pain and fatigue, and keeping up with the priorities in my life.  It was hard for me to understand how regardless of how often I prayed and sought my God, the struggle seemed to continue and my underlying anxiety wasn’t lifted.  I wanted to believe that if I did the right things and connected with God, that life would at least internally get easier.

Fortunately there are many moments in which I can find joy.  When I have heard happy news – prayers being answered, friends calling at the right time, spiritual and relational connections, I can do a happy dance.  Sometimes the joy is over the simple things, such as making a good shot in a racquetball game, seeing my team win, a great cup of coffee, or finding my way when I am lost.  This year alone I recognize the gifts – a new job, financial gifts from friends, free books, walks in nature, two wonderful daughters that continue to amaze me, less pain with my Purple mattress and friends getting sober.  I am grateful that I see the blessings, and how they become interwoven in my story and God’s plan for my life.

The truth is the joy I find in the Spirit and with my Savior is there when I am grieving losses AND experiences the blessings of life.  Often the two are intertwined with my God in the middle of the complexities of my circumstances.  I can find my God’s love when I take in the presence, and the Spirit’s wisdom to get me through my day.  I can have hope as I continue to bring my concerns and brokenness before my Savior, that healing comes. In the midst of the struggles, I find joy in connecting with others and my God and looking for the gold that is in this path.  The joy of the Savior isn’t denying the heartache around me, but seeing that sometimes I need to just stop and grieve my losses and receive grace and compassion that is waiting for me – through a book, nature, a sermon, the Bible, a friend, or the gentle whisper of God.

The Christmas story as I understand it is about a young mother giving birth during many unknowns and hardships.  She lost her reputation as being an unwed mother, and perhaps lost many friends and family members. I don’t know much about her extended family as they are absent in the Biblical accounts, and don’t appear to be part of the story.  There was no mention of support (or planning) for their journey to Jerusalem or when giving birth to Jesus as He was born with the animals.  The Shepherds are the ones who the Lord brought to see Him in the Manger.  She put her trust in Joseph and the messages of God and angels, in spite of her circumstances. After Jesus’ birth things went from hard, to much greater horror as Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.  As she is celebrating the birth of the Savior, others are devastated to have their newborn babies killed.  Grief and hope are webbed into the story.

Today, I hope that I can rest assured of the real joy that is in the Christmas story.  A joy that can’t be shaken by circumstances, and isn’t about what my feelings are in the moment.  It is based on the truth of the Savior, the Gift of Jesus, and a Faith in what is not always seen. Though I many not understand all of the sadness, death and suffering in this world, the Christmas story brings a Savior to Worship, a God to be praised, a joy like no other. The unexpected happens – God brings people into the story that I could never imagine, to bring a miracle for us all.

Grace and Peace,

Elissa Noble

The Season of Advent – Finding Hope

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elissa2When I look at the Advent season I think of how much I long for peace, hope, love and joy.  I desire a future where I can feel God’s love and be surrounded by people who unite together to make a better world and support one another.  I look at the beauty of a newborn child the innocence, the awe, the wonder.  A future yet to unfold.  

I am not always sure how to bring light into the circumstances of my life.  One of my biggest challenges is dealing with the fears that grip me.  This past year alone was filled with many situations that felt beyond my control.  A loved one dying from alcoholism, financial insecurities, people I care about in jail, ongoing pain, political upheaval, and all the struggles of Covid. I feel the fear of greater loss, of lives on the edge, of health becoming worse, of sobriety threatened, of relationships becoming strained and a world with much evil.  I fear my own sanity and ability to cope as I feel the rawness and confusion when the path ahead is not always clear.  

I am so grateful for what I can see, for where the Spirit is at work in my inner life.  Not every circumstance has gotten better, but I see myself growing and reaching out in ways I haven’t before.  With the isolation, I am learning to call friends more often to catch up and really talk about life.  I am pausing more to listen to the wisdom of others.  I am more intentional when I walk in nature about taking in the beauty, and spending more time with my Higher Power.  I am much kinder to myself (and others), being aware of the negative messages I say to myself, and watching them pass through with grace.  I am grieving more my losses and resentments and looking at the real pain that radiates in my soul.  

Often I see the grace of God in the middle of my fears.  This past year I started a God box where i try to surrender my concerns to my God.  The funny thing is a friend in recovery suggested this about 10 years ago, but I never found it necessary.  In some ways, it was my way of being open to Hope again.  Maybe, just maybe, the Spirit would move through my life in new ways.  Though many of the things in my God box keep coming back for me to surrender, the act of doing so has made me more aware of my Higher Power at work.

My prayer box was a key thing that drew me to Montavilla United Methodist Church.  The fact that I saw the job announcement itself was pretty ironic, as the particular job was outside of the location of my job search but somehow the search engine included it.  When I read the description of the job, it was a lot of what I had put in my God box for a future position – where I would better utilize my gifts and passions.  When I had the Zoom interview (in my sweats with my 2 cats :)), it was amazing.  I loved the people, they made me laugh, I loved their passion and the church’s mission, and I felt like God was leading me this way.  Since you are reading the post, you can see I got the job.  

What surprised me the most about this job, is my fears intensified.  I really thought that being in what I saw as God’s will, and working for a church would relieve me of my fears.  The reality though is my fears can be pretty deep, and like many of us I have wounds that are associated with the church and with the humans in the church.  So I will continue to do what I know – look for the light, pray to receive the love, and allow my God to work in and through me.  In spite of my fears, in spite of my insecurities, I put my Hope in a God who brings beauty in all sorts of places.  

In the middle of all of life, I believe in the light of the Star, of Jesus, of the Spirit to bring hope.  I sit in this presence with my fears and concerns, to bring me comfort and love.  To create some space in my brain for my God to speak to me, to look for a way through it.  I can’t control my fear and anxiety anymore than I can control other people, but I can speak truth in the lies that try to suffocate me, and tell me this is the end of the story.  I can sit in the grief, the questions and know I don’t have to be strong, I don’t have to figure it all out, I just need to receive and give love, to do the next thing.  To be willing to step out into the unknown and my fears, to find where my God is at work.  My fears are just fears.  Yet my God is still God.  

In Grace and Love,

Elissa Noble

Office Manager