the toughest part of the day

Twelve in12

 Reading 

The Lance Thrower ~ Jack Whyte

Finished

Its Christmas Eve, and there’s a part of me that thinks I should be happy. Or excited, or something more than what I’m feeling.  I just don’t seem to care or believe that its actually Christmas Eve.  I’m not in the spirit, whatever that spirit is supposed to be.  I’m not sure that I’m ever really in the "Christmas" spirit at the right time.  Christmas seems to come barreling at me, but I’m never really in the spirit until our church’s Christmas Eve services.  Until Christmas Day with my parents, around the fireplace opening presents.

This year will be different.  I won’t be with my parents and we won’t be sitting around Christmas Day opening presents.  We’ll still have our Christmas Day, and that will be fine.  But it won’t be the same.  Mostly because I’m off-schedule from everyone else. I don’t really care that its Christmas Eve.  In a way, its not for me.  It will be another week before I get my Christmas, and so I feel a little bit like a downer.  I’m not as excited about Christmas.  It doesn’t feel like Christmas to me.  Its just another day, another church service, another event to plan and stress over.  That can’t be good, but I can’t exactly explain how or why.

The most enjoyment I’ve gotten recently was earlier this evening.  I received a book called "Carols for Choirs" in the mail that I had ordered earlier this month.  It has around 100 different carol arrangements for choirs to sing in a Christmas or Easter service.  Some of them are the familiar carols that everyone knows and hears on the radio.  Others are less known that my parents and I listen to on Christmas Day.  Others are even less known in the States, but more common in Europe, much older than most we know.  I played and sang through the entire book, taking over an hour of pure enjoyment at my pathetic playing and sorry singing.  But I was enjoying Christmas; I was enjoying and worshiping in a way that I can’t seem to do in the midst of a crowded service.

Perhaps thats been the thing lacking for me as of late.  I can’t worship the way I could when I worked at St Mark or NHRC.  I’ve found my own way to worship, but its not communal at all.  Its always done in the dead of night alone at the church.  Playing and praying and thinking – but all on my own.  I’ve somehow lost the ability to truly worship corporately.  I honestly don’t know how to revert that or fix it.  I don’t know if its the church, or me or a combination of both.

I know one thing for sure.  I’d rather pursue this line of thinking rather than think about the events of the next few days.  Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after aren’t going to be anything like I know.  

If you just walked away
What could I really say?
Would it matter anyways?
Would it change how you feel?

I am the mess you chose
The closet you can not close
The devil in you I suppose
Cause the wounds never heal

But everything changes if I could
turn back the years, if you could
learn to forgive me then I could
learn to feel

Sometimes the things I say
in moments of disarray
succumbing to the games we play
to make sure that it’s real

But everything changes if I could
turn back the years, if you could
learn to forgive me then I could
learn to feel

When it’s just me and you 
who knows what we could do
if we can just make it through 
the toughest part of the day

Everything changes if I could
turn back the years if you could
learn to forgive me then I could
learn how to feel, then we could
stay here together and we could 
conquer the world if we could
say that forever is more then just a word

If you just walked away 
What could I really say?
Would it matter anyway?
It wouldn’t change how you feel?

Everything Changes ~ Staind