Invisible

I miss him. I miss his arms around me, as I’ve said so often. His love languages were touch and service and I miss that, too. In the absence of both, I’ve wanted God to show up in person, take Rob’s place, sit across the table from me, and talk to me face to face. I know He doesn’t do that, though I’m not sure why, Biblical explanations aside. I only know that I sit alone at the table now, with no one to hug me or help me clear away dishes. And that God is invisible.

Which makes me feel invisible, too.

I have called this the Silence of God. It confuses me. He is, after all, Emmanuel, meaning God With Us. It makes me think I have a different definition for “with” than He does. “With” is how Rob lived with me. In person, up close and personal. He verbalized his thoughts. Lowered my blood pressure with his generous hugs. Helped me carry in groceries. Drove me to doctor appointments. Even kidded me about worrying over my test results, or his test results, or the both of us being admitted to a hospital.

Sometimes I have reason to worry, but it always helped to see his smile and the sparkle in his eyes. Does God have eyes? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them even though He is with us. It makes it hard to understand why he calls Himself “Emmanuel.” Especially at night when I cry alone and go to bed alone, and each morning when I wake up alone and face another day without Rob. 

Alone is such a lonely word.

The holidays seem to amplify the problem, underscored as they are by their focus on togetherness and family and memories. This was my second Christmas without Rob. There’s a lot of attention given to all the “firsts” when your husband dies. By the time a year has gone by, so have several dozen "firsts" it seems. It's a lot to deal with. Surviving it feels significant. But once it was over, to my surprise, Round Two arrived and I realized I had to do it all again. And again.

And again.

This Christmas I was in my own house and needed a house-sized tree. I bought a fake one that was pre-lit, wrestled it into submission in the living room (something Rob always did) and, after all that bravery, I was reduced to a pile of tears by the thought of pulling out all the decorations safely hidden away in storage. Where they could not hurt my broken heart. Unless it is Christmas, and you don’t have anything else to hang on tree branches.

So, I turned my back on all of them, drove myself to Walmart, bought enough silver and blue baubles to color coordinate with my newly decorated great room, and hurried home to adorn my new tree. And when it was finished, I sat down on the sofa and burst into tears again. This was my tree? The one with mass produced decorations that made it look like it belonged in a hotel lobby? And where were the stockings? Not hung by the chimney with care, I can tell you that right now. I don’t even have a chimney anymore. Though I have a fake fireplace that I enjoy every single day, I could not bring myself to purchase a Christmas stocking that no one would fill for me. And I could not bear the thought of hanging it up all by itself, devoid of one for Rob.

So, I didn’t.

Surrendering to the paradox of comforting, painful memories, I tried anyway to retrieve our ornaments from storage, but they’re all hidden behind heavy boxes of books, and I couldn’t reach them. So, the tree remained adorned with brand new ornaments and I grudgingly adapted. I fell in love with gnomes, bought a few, and set their amusing, wintery figures around for decoration. Throughout it all, I ignored the glaring absence of my very favorite part of Christmas—the stockings.

I told myself it didn’t matter every time I saw a display of them in department stores. Stockings are for children, not sixty-four-year-old women who need to face reality. I barely had space for a fake tree. Where was I supposed to hang a foot-long pouch that would surely make me cry every time I looked at it? Nowhere, that’s where. This is your life now, I reminded myself. Get a grip and be thankful for what you do have. After all, lots of women have husbands who never fill their stockings or even buy them presents. You’re just late to the party.

One night, a few days before Christmas, my dear friend, Sue, and I had supper together and drove around looking at lights and talking. There are a few people in the world who offer their therapy services for free—hair dressers, nail techs, and best friends. Soon, my Christmas heartache was spilling out all over the inside of her car and she was handing me Kleenex to soak up the mess. I told her how I couldn’t face Rob's and my years of collected ornaments, and how I didn’t even try to hang up my lone stocking, or replace it. “Who would fill it?” I said.

After a few minutes, Sue said something I will never forget. “Oh, Eula,” she began, “I feel so bad. A few days ago the Lord told me to buy and fill a stocking for you. But I was in a rush that day and it was a strange impulse, so I let the idea go by.”

She apologized but, of course, there was no need for an apology at all, and I assured her of that. Actually, my heart lit up with her surprising confession. “I don’t need a stocking,” I told her. “I can’t believe God told you to do that. He saw me, Sue! I can’t believe that He saw me. Every time I walked past a display of Christmas stockings reminding me of my loss, He saw me. I never told anyone about this. Never mentioned to anybody how important stockings are to me. Only Rob knew that. But God saw it and it mattered to Him and He told you to do that. That's more important to me than if you’d done it.”

Well, Sue has a gift of giving. She loves to give, just like Someone Else I know. And when I came home from a Christmas Eve spent with my daughter and her family, a beautiful and stuffed full stocking with my name on it sat beneath my Christmas tree, snuck in while I was away. It was perfect. And when I emptied it the next morning and hung it on the wall beside the tree, it looked like it belonged there.

I listened to some Christmas sermons from my son’s church during Advent this year where they talked about Jesus, Emmanuel, God With Us. And I was right—it’s not Biblical for God to appear at your dining room table in person. The closest He's come to doing that was in the form of His Son, Jesus. But how did He communicate with people before Jesus came? He sent messages through prophets, angels, dreams. And I realized, no matter how angry and frustrated I am by the Silence of God, He is not silent. He shows up, usually in the form of other people. People who listen to Him and then do or say things that don’t always make sense at first. At least, not until someone else gives them the translation.

We are the Body of Christ. We are His hands. We are his feet. We are his voice. We are even His wallet. And learning to listen and then speak His language to hurting hearts is what brings heaven to earth every day of the year.

Emmanuel is with us.