When Christmas Gets Messy

Christmas is supposed to be pretty, isn't it? Twinkly lights and shiny paper. Glittery nail polish {no? just me?} and cheery gatherings. We demand this perfection out of a handful of days that we wouldn't dream of demanding from the rest of the year because let's face it: who can keep up with that?

And for the last couple of days, I've shared with you the pretty part of our Christmas. {Braeya-family-photo excluded.}

But it wasn't all pretty and sparkly. And the part that wasn't deserves to be told just as much. Maybe more.

I've told you many times that Ryan has a lot of family. Part of that is because his mom's side of the family has about a billion aunts, uncles, and cousins. But part of it is because he also has a step-family. And it's our Christmas with them that I want to tell you about today.

We always gather with them on Christmas night at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It's a tiny house {not like an ACTUAL tiny house, but a small house} and Christmas happens on the sun room just off the kitchen. We eat and talk, take turns leading devotions, sing Christmas carols {including Space Age Santa Claus, which I have STILL not learned in its entirety} and then Grandma passes out presents to everyone.

This family is made up of a group that has come together by a mix of blood and marriage, but you can't tell the difference. "Step" family is a term that I use merely for clarification. It's not how they dole out love. Ryan is loved just as much as any of their grandchildren by blood. And I know I'm just as welcomed as he is, though I came in by marriage.

This year, all the things that always happen at Christmas still happened, but we had something new in the mix this year.

Grandpa's health is not good.

We knew that before we walked in the door Sunday night. We've watched him slowly go downhill the last many months. In fact, I've never truly known him as the man that Ryan remembers from his childhood. The fun-loving, active grandpa who loved to farm had already been subdued by illness before I ever arrived. But I love hearing Ryan's stories of the grandpa he knew and loved, and every now and then I'd catch a glimpse of that man.

{The one I remember most was two years ago at Christmas when I took a photo booth and NO ONE expected him to take a stab at it, but he did!}

That Grandpa wasn't the one we saw when we walked in the door this year. Knowing he was sick and declining in no way prepared any of us for his actual condition, and it was heartbreaking to see.

We ate and talked and watched the kids play together. We sang Christmas carols and then Ryan's brother read Luke 2 to start the devotion time for the year. And when he was done, he said he didn't want to talk about Christmas this year.

And what he proceeded to say was the most beautiful, heartbreaking, wonderful, terrible acknowledgment of the truth before us. The entire house was silent except for Grandpa struggling to breathe and Rod's voice speaking aloud the truth no one wanted to say. And we were all relieved he said it. And then he went on to do something that reminded me of what I imagine it was like in Bible times when patriarchs reached the end and responsibility for the family was passed to the next generation.

Rod praised Grandpa and Grandma for their choices and perseverance and decisions - all of which have led all of us to be the people we are. He honored them out loud for the good and extended grace for the hard. And then he prayed over every single adult male in the entire family by name - whether those people were there or not - and over their specific lives, work, relationships, and needs.

When he was done praying, Ryan stood up and prayed over his brother {and yes, of course by that time I was a mascara-losing MESS}, and then we all gathered around Grandpa and laid hands on him and prayed for mercy and comfort and healing of some kind.

You guys? I will say it straight up. I am not a sickness kind of person. I'm not good with it. It makes me panic and feel sick and we will not even discuss what it does to my blood pressure. I have no future in health care. I was scared out of my mind to be there in the midst of such heartbreaking illness.

But those moments of acknowledgement and honoring and challenge and praying and hands-on-loving in the middle of heartbreak were moments I will never ever forget. I could feel them searing into my mind and heart.

There was a Christmas tree in the corner with twinkling lights and shiny presents underneath. Christmas was there in the way we ask it to be. But the raw love in that room...the love that awkwardly and messily pushed through the heartbreak of illness...that was a piece of Christmas that was more authentic than any carol or party.

A gift. A hard, awkward, messy gift that will be mine forever.