I remember the moment vividly. A few years ago I was sitting in my pastor’s office with my church group. We went around sharing our prayer requests for the week and tears welled up in my eyes as I said, “I don’t feel joy.” As the words tumbled out of my mouth, I was stunned and saddened by the reality they held. 

It felt like something was wrong with me. Everyone else seemed so happy with their life, but for months I felt trapped inside my anger and hurt. I was so emotionally fraught that I was physically ill.

It wasn’t even Halloween yet, but I knew I had to do something to spark some joy. So, my husband graciously blessed my idea to decorate early for Christmas.

As we pulled out the tree from the attic, turned on some Christmas tunes, and drank hot cocoa in Christmas mugs, I could feel some lightness seep into my heavy heart.

In a way, decorating for Christmas became a gratitude practice for me. As we adorned our living room with red and green, I found myself being grateful for the upbeat melodies of my favorite Christmas tunes, the bright colors that changed the look of my house, and the many special memories my ornaments held.

As we turn the corner toward Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’m reminded that many of us don’t feel the joy we think we’re supposed to have. Some of us are still mending wounds, nursing heartaches, or working through uncertainty about the future. And if this is where you’re at today, I totally get it. 
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Sometimes we need very tangible things to hold onto when our hearts are hurting. So if you’re up for it, I invite you to find your own gratitude practice this season.
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Whether it’s grabbing a pumpkin spice latte to remind yourself to enjoy the changing fall colors, decorating your Christmas tree to remember precious memories, or making a list of 10 things you’re grateful for each day, there is healing in acknowledging the beauty of small things and the gifts that come from above.

In last week’s devotion we talked about wilderness as representing God’s wild and free spirit, not bound to human structure and institutions. But this week, we’re going to talk about wilderness as being a desolate and dark place. 
 
One day I decided that I should go to the actual wilderness to really understand wilderness in scripture. So, what that meant was I went to my backyard—not just my regular backyard—the backyard *behind* my fence. Behind the fence is this land in the middle of our neighborhood full of trees that’s meant to catch and drain water when it rains really hard. But when it’s not raining, it’s mostly dry. So, on a dry day, I put on my wilderness shoes and I went to the wilderness. As I pushed aside some thorny plants blockading the entrance, I stepped into the wilderness and was stunned at how vast it was. I couldn’t even see the other side where I knew there were houses. I had no idea there was such a big area back there. 
 
Then, I noticed an abandoned beach ball on the ground and wondered how long it had been there. Then all of a sudden, I saw a camouflage bucket hung on a tree with a string that looked like it was filled with ammo and looked like some sort of booby trap, so I got away from that as fast as possible. As I was walking away, I saw some leafy plant on the ground and thought – I wonder if that’s poison oak – what does poison oak look like again? Then, I started noticing holes in the ground, and thought to myself – do snakes live in holes? And just as I was about to freak out about snakes, I looked down, and there were hundreds of mosquitos flying around my legs. I lasted in the wilderness about five minutes.
 
Some of us are thrust into the wilderness not by our own choice, but by systemic injustices or devastating trauma. When I was thrust into the wilderness after a deep betrayal, I found that the wilderness of my soul was a lot like that trip to my backyard. Being thrust into the wilderness was like being shoved through the blockade of thorns, a series of painful, sharp, realizations that slashed at my joy and left me with open wounds. As I looked around my wilderness, I found that it was indeed vast, full of hurt with no end in sight.
 
I saw the abandoned beach ball, memories of a fun and beautiful life in the past that now looked lost and abandoned, never to be retrieved again. The triggers of my pain were like booby traps, spiraling me back to the beginning of my pain all over again, making me feel stuck, like there was no forward path to healing. The poison oak was reminders that spread my soul with bitterness, anger, and resentment. The snake holes were my fear that I’m not safe and I need to shield myself from any future pain. And the mosquitoes, the constant thoughts surrounding me, telling me that it was my fault this trauma happened, because I’m not good enough. 
 
This wilderness can be a dark place. In spiritual circles it’s called the dark night of the soul. It’s a place where we feel abandoned by God, wondering, “God, where are you?” Where are you in my cancer? Where are you in my grief? Where are you in my loneliness? Where are you in my depression?
 
Surely the Israelites were asking this same question when they were taken from their home, their sense of security and safety, taken away from their identity, away from their beloved temple, God’s dwelling place with humanity,[1]and exiled to Babylon. They too were in a dark place. Psalm 137 tells us they wept at the streams of Babylon, longing for their home. They couldn’t even sing songs because the pain of exile was too painful. 
 
But there is good news. We will be brought out of the wilderness.
 
The Israelites were eventually brought out of their captivity and returned to their land. In Advent readings for Week 3, we read Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 35 that the Israelites will return to their home...singing! “Gladness and joy” will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isa 35:10).
 
But the thing is, the journey out of the wilderness isn’t always what we expect. We don’t always see God working in our circumstances. And when we get to the other side of our healing, it’s not always rainbows and butterflies (to quote Maroon 5). 
 
That wasn’t the case for the Israelites, they didn’t quite have the glorious return they expected back home. They struggled to restore their lives.[2]And it’s not the case for me, I’m out of the throes of trauma yet still struggling with the aftermath of an anxiety disorder. And you may be able to relate. You may have gone through something terribly painful and thought you were healed, but every now and then the pain still stings your heart. 
 
Friend, I want to tell you today that joy and gladness does come. The joy and gladness we feel from being healed in this life isn’t necessarily because we’re done with the pain, but because we see the good that comes out it, because we’ve experienced the redemption that happens in this life, now.
 
Because of our pain, we now can empathize with others who have experienced what we’ve experienced, we can walk with someone who’s beginning the painful journey we just walked out of, and we can help people wait in the wilderness for complete deliverance. 
 
And during Advent and Christmas we celebrate our promise of complete deliverance, which is only possibly because Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us. And because Jesus became what we are, he knows every painful circumstance we go through. Jesus understands pain, abandonment, betrayal, and sickness. And our promise of complete deliverance was fulfilled when Jesus was crucified on the cross, was resurrected on the third day, and ascended into heaven. Jesus became a curse for us so what we could be freed from the curse of this world (Gal 3:13), so that we could be freed from the wildernesses of this life, let out of captivity of Sin and Death, and brought back from exile into God’s presence, so that we can enter God’s Kingdom with singing. Amen. 
 
Work Referenced:
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[1]“Temple” The Bible Project. Accessed 13 December 2020. https://bibleproject.com/learn/temple/

[2]McCann, J. Clinton JR. “The Book of Psalms” in The New Interpreters Bible Commentary. Edited by Leander E. Keck et al. Abingdon Press: Nashville 2015, 537.