WHAT DO YOU WANT?
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Snowflakes,
candy canes, gingerbread people, twinkling lights, letters that begin,
"Dear Santa, I’ve been good. I want, wish, dream to have …”
Expect,
anticipate, and maybe, it will … or it won’t … happen.
We
hope it won’t rain during a wedding. We hope our sniffle doesn’t turn into a
cold. We hope our interview lands us a job. We hope that small box wrapped in
gold foil under the Christmas tree contains the promise and hope of a future
from that special someone we love.
Hope
is the belief in your mind that all things positive will touch your life.
Negative events will turn around in a positive light. Hope is refusing to
believe that all is not okay. Hope is a goal achieved, not a whim or fantasy
but something worked for, planned for, anticipation made tangible and real.
Hope
is the truth and joy of life. Hope is not a promise of the future. We want what
we hope for, but hope is the courage for a chance of something better.
Hope
is precarious. Delicate. A wisp of a dream. When hope is crushed or crumbled,
our souls disappear.
Life
didn't happen the way I hoped it would - by being good. Losing hope was
sleeping on the floor, cold through my toes, shivering, exposed. No purpose in
life. No will to go on. I survived a misogynistic religious
cult, emotional and physical abuse by my father and my first husband, their
control and lies.
I didn’t survive when my tiny disabled
son perished … I didn't know … why did he die? Or when my young daughter
was torn away by Child Protective Services and given to her abusive father to
raise. Though I cried, warned, and knew that he would hurt her, no one listened
to me. I spent that first wretched
Christmas without my children, curled into a sobbing, angled ball. Alone. I
felt forsaken and so overwhelmed with grief, I forgot how to breathe.
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I was a nothing against the world,
wandering without purpose, no longer a daughter, a wife, a mother … after I was
accused of my son’s … murder.
When hope perished for me, I wanted to drift with it. Into an abyss. And stay. From not so far away, my son heard me cry. He stepped across the divide from where he was and came back to where I was. He didn’t appear as a ghost or a spirit or as dead. From the other side, my son knew where I was and the plan I had made. To end my pain.
He called upon me as I wished and hoped
he would be: whole, happy, restored. He touched my soul with a whisper of hope
and told me it wasn’t my time to go. My work here wasn’t over. I needed to live
because his sister needed me to survive and fight for her right - to be a child - and live without fear of displeasing her father.
Hope was the reason I kept on
breathing. Hope gave my wounded wings power to heal and fly. Purpose and
passion bloomed and gave me strength to survive that awful Christmas ... and
the next ... until my daughter was able to come back to me. As I knew he
would, her father physically, emotionally, and sexually abused her. We had a
lot of healing to do.
I cannot forget that past. It haunts my sleep with nightmares and my waking hours with fear, grief, and PTSD. When panic tries to call, I pin my hope on the Christ of Christmases past - before my son died and the lives of my daughter and I were turned upside down. Christ was my hope that one day, the truth of who killed my son would be exposed to the light and justice would be restored.
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Christ is my joy and life. He gave me
the courage to become my children’s’ voice when they couldn’t speak for
themselves.
It’s difficult to have a Merry
Christmas when we are lonely or stressed. Christmas is supposed to be a time of
joy: a family gathering, gifts under the tree, caroling off key, knocking on
neighbors' doors, a birthday celebration for the world.
Christmas is supposed to be a time of
renewed hope—not hope in a particular political concept or a religious sect,
but hope in baby Jesus the Christ. Hope that, despite human bungling and
fallacies, God will bring order and hope out of chaos or despair.
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What are you hoping for this year?
World peace? Happiness, money, stability, joy, balance, fulfillment,
confidence, passion, a new car? Once upon a time, all I hoped for was … the
impossible. I wanted time to replay. I wanted my son alive and my daughter back
in my arms. My wishes came true - in God's time. My son is alive and waiting
for me in the next dimension of life, and my daughter is grown with young ones
of her own. I hug them all every chance I get. God is good. He gave me the
patience to wait for it.
I hope this Christmas season finds you
with friends who care when you are down, family who aren’t yours only by blood,
but family who stick by your side and defend you in a fight in both low and
high tides.
May the joy of life and Christ enrich
your soul and stuff your stocking full, hung on the chimney or strung by a
string on a wall - wherever you are. Merry Christmas and love to you all.
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As Long As I Breathe is
dedicated to:
survivors of emotional, physical, spiritual, or sexual abuse,
those who have had to bury a murdered child,
former members of a misogynistic religious cult,
children born with Cornelia de Lange Syndrome,
and anyone who was falsely accused of a crime.
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Joyce A Lefler is the author of
From Miracle to Murder: Justice For
Adam.
She is a facilitator for Parents of Murdered Children,
a bereavement counselor, registered nurse,
and an advocate against abuse.
Connect with her on:
