THE GREATEST ACT OF DEFIANCE

(Post by: Lilly Hobbs – Blogmas Day Fourteen 2023)

Grief has been great in our household as many of you know. This is the first time I have sat down to write since Ruby’s passing, and I must admit, it has been a struggle for me to get to this point.

The house feels empty. Coming home isn’t the same. The family feels incomplete.

The day after she passed, I told someone very close to me that I have never related more with Lewis’ quote in which he says that “Grief feels so much like fear.”

I wanted nothing more than for Christmas to be over and done with those first few days after we lost her.

The thought of celebrating while feeling so very broken seemed terribly, terribly wrong. How could we celebrate when the effects of death were all around us?

Then the conviction came rushing into my heart as quickly as the sadness and grief did, and I was reminded of a truth the Lord brought to my attention last Christmas, that I believe just might be actively saving this Christmas.

I preached it boldly to our little Bible study group last December, and now I preach it again to myself this December.

To celebrate Christmas in a broken and desperately lost world is an act of defiance against the enemy. When we choose to celebrate in the face of evil, pain, and hardship, we are doing so because of the healing and love that can only be found in our precious Savior.

We have an opportunity to allow the goodness and the beauty of Jesus, as Kamryn wrote about yesterday, to overwhelm us instead of the grief and sorrow we may bear in this present moment.

So, I invite you to join me as I stand amongst the shepherds, stumbling over the straw to stand over the manger, and with the wise men who travel with giddy anticipation, as one prophecy after another is actively being fulfilled.

Most importantly, I invite you to join me as I raise my voice to harmonize with the angel’s sweet songs of praise in celebration of the darkness and evil that is being undone, even in this very moment.

Because He is here with us, we need not feel scared or lost again. All the world is right.

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.” (Psalm 42:11)

I have a choice to make this Christmas season… Will I allow grief to overwhelm my soul and ruin this Christmas? Or will I instead choose to be a threat to the enemy, actively defying him in the greatest way possible, by celebrating the goodness and the hope my Savior has freely offered me?

I proclaim to each of you that I am choosing the latter this Christmas, even after experiencing death so fresh and with tears in my eyes.

“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom.” (Psalm 145:3)

The greatest act of defiance is the celebration of Christ and His coming. May we celebrate, together, in every way we know how, and even more so in the midst of grief.

“No half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.” (J. R. R. Tolkien)