Christmas and Chronic Pain

Nativity by Diane Newcomer

Christmas and Chronic Pain

I woke up this morning with familiar joint pain.  The one I thought I had under control, where my hips ache, my finger say ouch and my ankles feel like they want to pop. My hands and feet have been freezing the past few days and I just ache.

I hesitate to title this chronic pain because I listen to the Everything Happens podcast with Kate Bowler and she is dealing with debilitating chronic pain after cancer treatments.  She deserves to have the title.  But pain that won’t go away year after year is chronic.  I can admit that I have chronic pain.  It doesn’t have to be as bad as someone else to still be painful for me.

And it doesn’t go away at Christmas.

I want to make gingerbread houses, and get out the nativity set and play all the board games while we are tucked cozy in our house.  I want to make cinnamon rolls and memories.

But instead not everything can get done.

And my husband reminds me it’s okay.

It’s okay I didn’t get him three Christmas presents.  (I wanted to say a million, but in reality I wasn’t even able to get three.)

It’s okay the ginger bread houses aren’t made.

It’s okay I laid in bed all morning.

I don’t like it.  But it’s okay.

I don’t always have to be moving or be productive.

You don’t always have to be moving or productive.

Let’s give ourselves permission to just be.

Be with the pain.

Be with those who love us through the pain.

God With Us

At our summer wedding in July, my husband and I chose to have O Come, O Come Emmanuel played . We both have very very different tastes in music and this is the only song we both like.  We love the words behind the song. It speaks of the longing for God with Us to come.

Christmas is about God coming to be with us.

He was human and part of being human is experiencing pain.

He took on a human body that carries pain. And no I’m not talking about the pain he experienced on the cross.

Surely Jesus scraped his elbow, or had a toothache. Surely his joints ached in the morning and he had a headache. His stomach turned when he ate a bad piece of meat. God came to be with us in our pain. He isn’t far away. God became human- fully God and fully human.  He came to be with us and has compassion for us.

Part of the beauty of Christmas with chronic pain is that Jesus came to be a part of our world and experienced pain along side us.

More Than the Hope of Heaven

It’s tempting to skip ahead in the story.

Jesus defeated death.

He is reigning in Heaven and will establish a new Heaven and new Earth with no more pain.

While that is true, my joints ache today. The current world we live in aches.

At Christmas, we can remember that Jesus came into a broken aching world and he didn’t immediately fix it. 

He lived and breathed and ate with us. He taught us. He experienced the fullness of being human with us. 

He lives in a resurrected body now and we live in a broken world.

This Christmas season how does Jesus becoming human with all the pain that is involved, bring you comfort?

This Christmas let’s remember that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with Us.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel and meet us in our human bodies as you became human so many years ago.