Photography by Folkert Gorter, Superfamous Studios

I’m not feeling merry. Festive has fled, and while there is tinsel winding its hairy way around the lounge room furniture, I’m counting down to the new calendar and year that sparkles and glitters just a few days away.

This year has been a beautiful mess. Difficulties have kept me company and awake more nights than I’d like to consider, and answers to prayers have left me furious. I’ve made some friends this year (a miracle in itself) and I’ve been blindsided by generosity and danced myself giddy at opportunities. It’s been a beautiful mess of a year, no doubt about it.

And if someone else wishes me a merry Christmas I may not be able to stop myself shoving their Santa hat down their shirt.

I don’t want a merry Christmas. I would like a merciful Christmas. I want one for dear ones, first off. For two friends in particular, one who is weathering the first Christmas after the passing of her firstborn son, and one who is gathering the silken, sharp hours of her mother’s last Christmas. I want a merciful Christmas for them both, softly delivered like countless hugs and tears melting in the neck creases of loved ones. I want the mercy of a solid nap for them, of belly laughs and clasped hands, of whispered words lifting the weight of their bones, lightening strikes of joy, peace or even generous forgetfulness, all of it shoved determinedly into an odd little parcel then slipped in their pocket.

I want a merciful Christmas for the families stretched, broken, healing and adrift. I want a merciful Christmas where we all can shrug the demands from our eyes, wash the stress from our hands, and feel more than a failure, a disappointment, a should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. I want to wrap those mercies around people like a thick, sweet blanket, tight around feet or loose over hips, exactly how we each remember comfort feeling when we tasted it sweetest, however long ago. I want to slather it on over shoulders, noses, right out to fingertips, an emotional sunscreen to protect us from the doubts and sharp opinions heading our way, and have it soak in like sunshine, rain, celebration and encouragement.

I wish myself a merciful Christmas. One where I count my strengths just as often as my weaknesses, and stand clapping at what I’ve accomplished. I don’t feel festive, but I feel merciful. Full of mercy – mercy which has been wrapped around and through my thoughts and actions, my swearing and laughter, my frustrations and sobbing this past year. Last Christmas I shoved my fears and hopes around my intentions and threw them up to God. A spiky, leaking, barbed-wire and whispers mess of wonky discipleship landing right at my Saviour’s feet. I’ve only realised this week that He tucked it in close, and has carried it – dripping, cranky, gasping, twitchy as it was – right to this Christmas (because there was no way I could have hauled it this far and this long myself) and is waiting for whatever else I choose or think to give him.

It always surprises me when He takes whatever I give (however grudgingly, hopelessly, wholeheartedly, hilariously or furiously I deliver them), and loves me for, in spite and because of every single one. So, looks like I’m getting a merciful Christmas after all. I hope you do, too.

What do you wish for yourself, and particular people, this year? Are you feeling festive? Do you give something to Christ, to God, at Christmas? What does mercy feel like for you?


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