How I’m Really Doing this Christmas

And we’ve arrived at Christmas Eve.  Something about the holidays compels me to write, probably because I feel a void where a sense of fullness should be, and writing is a feeble attempt at navigating through the disorder that came when I held my son as he died, disturbing the natural order of life.  I’ve been blessed with encouraging words, gifts, and prayers from friends and family this Christmas, and have had many people asking how I’m doing.  Something I think about often for myself, and try hard to quantify, to sum it up into a few words, to give a true snapshot of the depths of my heart.  Because when you lose a child to disease, suffering, and death, you can’t really just answer “fine” anymore.  So, how am I really doing this Christmas?  I guess it depends on how you look at it.

I’m looking at it through the lens of Romans 7, where Paul is grappling with putting away the desires of his old, fleshly, sinful nature and putting on the freedom that comes with Christ and the fruits of the Spirit that follow.  Paul understood that, even with Christ, we still live in a fallen, broken world, and, though forgiven once and for all for our sin by the grace of God, we will continue getting things wrong as long as we’re stuck in these human bodies.

“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” -Romans 7:21-25

Maybe this passage doesn’t bring about the Christmas spirit for you, but it meets me in a different way this holiday season, as we’re still so tangled in the spiderweb of grief and loss.  This passage brings to mind the battle of heaven and earth we’re all living, each moment of every day.  It brings to mind the war I wake up to each morning with empty arms and only pictures for memories.  On the one hand, this Christmas sucks, and I’m doing terribly.  I’m supposed to be wrapping presents for my 8-month old baby, not visiting his gravesite.  We should be reading him the story of the Messiah, who came to earth as a baby, too.  I should be sending out Christmas cards that proudly show off our new family member, not ones with pictures we took in between surgeries and medical procedures.  Like Paul wresting with the war of his mind, I’m fighting off flashbacks and an interrupted future.  And I wish this Christmas would never arrive, because it marks the end of another year, but this isn’t just another year, it’s the year a boy named Benjamin Paul Colonna lived.  He had parents who loved him with every cell in their bodies.  He had soft, blond hair, a tiny body muddled with steroids that made him appear bigger than he actually was, the handsomest blue eyes that must ever have been created, and the sweetest disposition that could only have been penned by a Creator God, a Creator who, for reasons I may never know, allowed him to also have a mutation of the CHD-7 gene (I may never know, but have peace in knowing that God doesn’t make mistakes, and Benjamin’s genetic mutation was planned and allowed by a mighty God, whose thoughts are not my thoughts, whose ways are higher than my ways).  He has a birth certification, a health insurance card, and a social security number.  He was real, he was here, and he was loved.  But he also has a death certificate.  It was issued this year, the same year of his birth, not 85 years after like it should have been.  His crib will never feel the weight of his small frame.  His stuffed animals will continue staring at me with sad, knowing eyes every time I walk into his room.  His clothes, so lovingly gifted, washed, and gently folded and placed in his dresser, will never warm his soft, baby skin.  And his first Christmas will remain unwritten in the story of his life, because he couldn’t stay here for it.

But there’s more to this story.  “Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  As Paul realizes the demise of our earthly selves, he is simultaneously, supernaturally encouraged at the promise of redemption, of freedom, of eternal life in heavenly bodies that will never see decay.  Though my house is too quiet and my arms are too empty and I’m sleeping 9 hours a night which sounds really great but actually isn’t great because it means I’m not up feeding or changing or comforting or playing with my son…I’m connected to heaven in a new way this year.  Most people will, thankfully, never experience the searing loss of losing a child who fought through so much suffering and sickness.  But most people will also never experience what it means to need heaven with every fiber of your soul.  Many will be grateful for the promise of eternal life in heaven through the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that same baby who was born thousands of years ago, man and God all at once, who was, and is, and is to come.  Those who have accepted Him as their Savior will fully appreciate, like I did, the gift that is freedom in Christ, especially this Christmas as we reflect on His birth into this world.

But something happened when Benjamin’s earthly body failed.  My earthly mind died, too, though my body still lives.  My mind became fixed on heavenly things.  Because heaven is where my baby is.  All of a sudden, heaven didn’t feel so far-off, so abstract anymore.  Before Benjamin died, I believed in heaven the same as I do now.  But the difference is that now, I need heaven.  I’m not just thankful for heaven.  I’m attached to heaven.  I’m not just thinking about heaven.  I’m longing for heaven.

How am I really doing this Christmas?  It doesn’t really matter, does it?  I don’t have to do it, whatever it is, because Christ did it all.  My son isn’t here, and there’s a gaping hole in my heart that will never be filled this side of heaven.  But there are also roots beneath my heart, roots that run deep in the fertile soil of the promises of God, rich with hope and fulfillment in Christ alone.

“Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!”