I wrote this Advent reflection two years ago. My daughter is twelve now, but she still asks difficult questions. I still have no easy answers.
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When I began writing these Advent reflections, I had a very general structure in mind. The whole series would move, I thought, from dark to light, from ordinary to extraordinary, from dust and dirt to starlight.
Oh, the best laid plans.
Instead, I have consulted this writing plan each morning and discovered my own emptiness. No words. No stories. No ideas. Which is a desperate place and a very good place to find oneself. It has led me to frantic prayer and constant listening. Finding no stories in the plan, I have listened hard for any hint of story in my day.
Often, I have found my stories in my daughter’s difficult observations.
Yesterday, she said, “I think it must be the worst thing in the world to have a child who dies.”
I am a writer, and I abhor a platitude, an easy answer. The cliché we use to bypass actual thought. Even so, it can be tempting to fall back on those things when we are faced with the unanswerable and the terrible. But I have learned a few things from writing and from reading, and I have learned a few things mothering this daughter.
I fight the pull of the pretty, easy answer and say nothing but “Yes, yes, I know.”
She is only ten, but she already understands love’s terrible shadow. She knows intuitively, without ever being taught, that great love rips us open. Leaves us wounded and bleeding.
I have no good answers for these kinds of questions. I have no band-aid for this degree of pain. Today, I do not even have much of a story. Sometimes, the world looks darker and more ordinary the closer we get to Christmas. Sometimes, there is no perfect, timely trajectory from Advent waiting to Christmas fulfillment.
But if I have no story, I do have this one thing to share with you. A vision of sorts.
After our conversation, I kept seeing a picture in my mind. It was my daughter, so full of difficult questions and a grief too old for her years, and she was wearing the angel costume we once found at a thrift store. It is white and shimmery, and the padded, embroidered wings are gold.
I kept seeing her sad eyes against the white glow of the angel’s dress, and I realized, I think for the first time, how much our Christmas gift was heaven’s loss.
I realized how vast an emptiness the Prince of Heaven left behind him when he poured himself into Mary’s womb.
I looked into angel eyes, and they seemed to say, “We have lost him. We have said goodbye. How long till he returns to us?”
I can’t erase love’s dark shadow, and I’m not sure I would if I could. But I know that the parent heart of God has known it all already. He has passed by a heavenly chamber and found it empty. Heart-breakingly empty. And I know he suffered that pain for love.
And yet, the emptiness of heaven at the moment of incarnation is as much good news as the emptiness of the tomb.
This is the good news of God-with-us. This is the good news of our restoration.
This is the comfort of believing God sees our emptiness, our pain and says, “Yes, yes, I know.”
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Love love love this! Thank you……
Love love love this! Thank you……I love your daughter’s sensitivity and depth.
Thank you, Lori. She feels things so deeply, as do I. Sometimes it’s good, but I’m afraid that together the two of us can spiral into despair a little too easily. Writing it out does help, though.
Thank you. I love today’s post. I have never thought of the emptiness of heaven before, only the arrival on earth. Very thought provoking. I read your words and I want more…more of your writing, more of that which causes me to look deeply…searching.
Thank you.
Christie,
I had not really considered the empty hole in heaven before — I just know though heaven couldn’t hold Him, our hearts can. Thank you to you and your daughter for this Advent thought.
Emily from Barnstorming
Isn’t his is our greatest comfort, that our God never calls us into sorrows that He has not entered – loss, loneliness, betrayal, temptation, weariness, even agony at the point of death.
“Yes, yes, I know” he says, and though we cannot discern the incomprehensible whys of our suffering, it is an immeasurable gift of grace that He has entered there, so we can believe He truly “knows.”
A lovely meditation. Thank you.
What a fresh perspective this is. Heaven’s emptiness. A poignant thought, and a wonderful reassurance that when God says yes, I know…He truly does. Beautiful.
Yes.
Thank you for sharing this perspective, Christie.
This post also reminds me of the “Who You Are” song by JJ Heller (which you really should listen to).
Especially this part:
“You are the father’s heart, and a love that’s wild,
and you know what it’s like to lose, yeah you know what
it’s like to lose, what it’s like to lose a child,
Sometimes I don’t know, I don’t know what your doing,
I don’t know, I don’t know what your doing, but I know who you are.”
Oh, that’s beautiful, Danielle. I will look for it …
Your daughter must be a intelligent girl. Love this post.