In The Affirmative: Say hello to God this Christmas
A painting by Wendy's wife Jo which Wendy says reminds her that ‘sometimes when we are alone and we listen we can sense God’s desire to be with us.’
OUR MOST READ BLOGGER since 2022 is back with the fourth of a series sharing more of her story. This month includes her experience of Christmas past and present.
In the Affirmative is a monthly blog from Open Table member Wendy Young who shares her life, thoughts and experience as a queer Christian in Britain. We’d love to hear from you, too: Wendy invites readers to add their responses and reactions as we build community together. You can read the first three in the series here, here and here.
Welcome back! It’s so nice to imagine you there, reading this blog.
I am writing it with a deep belief in the power of God as well as the power of sharing our stories. This time I am writing you my Christmas story.
Personally, I have a problem with Christmas: it’s the time of year when all the worst things happened to me as a child, like clockwork. That’s because it’s the time of year when families get together and, although what happened to me might not be the same thing that happened to you, many of us find this can be a challenge, for so many reasons. One major issue is that not everyone’s family celebrates them for who they really are. Eight in ten PinkNews readers said in 2021 that they have to hide who they really are during the festive period.
“8 in 10 readers forced to hide their true self at Christmas”
In an unexpected way, I can identify with that. I am happy to say my own family in South Africa welcomed my wife with open arms and absolutely adore her (more than me sometimes!). They have uncertainties about how our love and the faith we share tallies with what they have been taught about homosexuality, but they have decided to err on the side of love and I am so grateful. The family I married into have never had these same faith struggles, and are 100% on board with our relationship. When a young teenaged family member WhatsApped everyone a few years back to announce they’re actually not sure they’re really a boy, it was very nearly as simple as, ‘Cool, have you found a new name you like?’
So, around my family, I feel I can mostly be myself when it comes to both my faith and my sexuality. But there is a part of me I have learned to hide, or mask, at least.
When I was 12, the matriarch in our family died and the tradition of everyone spending Christmas together stopped. Gone were the long road trips various family members made from different parts of the country. No more cold curried meatballs and bags of crisps and the radio on in the car, stopping every hour for comfort breaks, especially from the heat (December in South Africa can easily reach 40ºC!). No more seeing people you only saw once a year and never have anything to do with in-between, to sit down together at the longest table (how did it appear out of the blue like that and where did my grandmother store it in between?) and eat and drink too much. No more gathering around the bright green plastic tree afterwards for someone dressed up as Father Christmas - a sweltering outfit in summer - to hand out presents. No more lazily wandering off into bedrooms and other nearby accommodation for the rest of the afternoon for naps (or, in my case, to experience abuse, as I shared last time).
When the only constant thread in a life regularly disrupted by house moves and my mum’s bipolar disorder suddenly disappeared, we were certainly at a loss. I can’t actually remember the details of the Christmases between my grandmother dying when I was 12 and when I left home at 19. If I try really hard, I think I recall church services and a celebratory meal together with a little present each. I know I announced every year that I wished we could just ignore it, and treat it like any normal day.
The decade or so of Christmases during my first long-term relationship were weird too. We would often spend it separately, each with our own family, because hers didn’t accept me or our relationship and she didn’t get on with my family. It was extremely stressful for everyone.
When I got married many years later to my British wife, it was a whole new set of Christmas traditions to get used to. They do it BIG. I mean, days-on-end of food for an army, many people visiting and staying over at different times, loud music, games, cinema outings where we would take up entire rows. There are more presents than I think I had seen in the rest of my life put together. On top of that, what makes it so different is the cold (and sometimes the snow) and fires and blankets and Carols from Kings. It’s intense!
And you know what? It’s wonderful. My wife and I make sure we get to church and we watch and listen to the things that remind us why we celebrate in the first place. Our wedding was just a few days before our first ever Christmas together in the UK, so this time of year feels extra special now. Sure, I get flashbacks and the odd nightmare. Around November, I start having that niggling feeling in my body that something unavoidable is coming. There are many triggers I don’t have to deal with, purely because the culture is so far removed from the one I grew up in. But once everyone is together, there are things I refuse to do (wearing a paper crown is one of them and I don’t even know why I hate them so much) and things I am slowly but surely getting used to (I may or may not have bought a card game this year!). I know when I need to leave a room and just have a time-out and I try not to make a fuss. I don’t announce what is going on for me. I told my UK family about my childhood in an email once long ago and I hardly ever mention it.
Perhaps this is one small nugget I can offer you as you go into Christmas time:
every now and then just give yourself a little time-out and, while you’re there, while you’re alone for a few moments, say hello to God.
In my mind’s eye, God is always waiting for us to come, to spend some time together, to be in the presence of each another, just us and God. God is always there; we are the ones who are busy and distracted, and sometimes we keep our heads down and our thoughts to ourselves so much that we forget God is there, waiting for our company.
You may be wondering where I get the idea that God longs for your company. I see it in the way God has always expressed God’s own being, from the very beginning. God created. I do believe this is true. I believe the universe came into being because of the will of God. I also believe God has been present with us from that same beginning. I believe God has been with us all along and then, after all that time, the most incredible miracle happened.
When was the last time Christmas hit you as something extraordinary? Have you lost your sense of wonder at the one story this is really about? An incarnation of God in human form, in the flesh, was born just like you and I were, and walked among us. Jesus was fully God and fully human at the same time; Immanuel: God with us.
THAT is why I still celebrate Christmas, against all odds.
‘For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness’ - Col 2:9-10
May your Christmas be filled with love and, if it doesn’t feel like that, find a moment to say hello to God who is just waiting to spend some time with you.
Wendy
