January 1, 2024
Christmastide liturgy: joy - one last prayer during the 12 days of Christmas
Note to the reader: I have found it isn’t common to find devotional literature that makes someone healing from trauma feel seen while also feeding them Christ.1 So this season, as a lay counselor, I am sharing these weekly liturgies for each week of advent, hoping to give words to their struggles, their fears, and their experience. In these, I aim to fix the reader’s gaze on the triune God, the one who walks with us, who sits with us in our darkness, and who alone can make us whole. Please share if you think this would serve someone living life after trauma.
Week 4 - Joy
Father,
As my focus shifts from the coming of Christ, to the coming of a new year, I am pausing to gaze at your face and reflect on all you are. Through Christ, you have made your face shine on me,1 and now the strength of my joy is your joy in me.
When others mocked my faith, when the enemies of my soul taunted me, “there is no salvation for her in God,” you proved them wrong. Your salvation is both final and ongoing, perfected in me and perfecting me2 - an endless source of life and light.
The light of your face is fullness of joy, especially when my heart is faint and my flesh is weak - dissociated, triggered, numb. Your delight in me melts away the shame that tends to cling so closely.3 You have given me a small place to stand with you - where Christ stands with me - in the very places where shame has attacked most profoundly my faith. And for that I praise you. The light of your face - your joy in me - enables me to scorn the shame.
So I look back to this past year, Christ shepherding all my memories. I see where your light was in every moment: how you listened, spoke, held, revealed truth, delighted in creating beauty, gave me eyes to see you. When I was terrified, you cupped my face in your hands and soothed me in your embrace telling me, “It will be okay.” When I didn’t know the next step, you showed me, “this is the way to go.” When I realized I was bearing burdens that were heavier than what I could bear, you said, “My Son is bearing them with you and for you.”
I bless you, Father, for all that you have revealed to me in the face of your Son. He who reveals your fullness, he who shows me your heart, your joy. I see his eyes, and I can’t hold his gaze too long. There is so much love, so much care… and my raw heart struggles to believe is all for me. Thank you that even though I am not strong enough to know the depth of your love for me in Christ4, that doesn’t turn him away, that he is patiently enlarging my capacity for more joy, for more gratitude, for more of you.
Thank you then also for your Spirit. For how he lives in me, enabling me to live the life of Christ that my flesh - my nervous system, my mind, my body - is unable to live. Through his supernatural presence in my heart, I trust, I live, I love. He has given me the mind of Christ to attach to you as Father and receive your compassion, forgiveness and grace.
Father, I have a race to keep running this year - a race toward you who are my home and my reward.5 I keep my eyes on your face, on the twinkle in your eyes, and your nodding look of understanding, compassion and grace. Knowing your heart for me in Christ feeds my endurance. I praise you that you will continue to be my salvation, strength and home. So I set my face like flint toward this year - and its ongoing brokenness, deep pain, and growing healing - trusting your complete deliverance, care and never-ending love.
Amen
In Case You Missed It
A couple of posts from last year but that are still just as true at the beginning of this year:
Numbers 6: 25-26
Hebrews 10: 10, 14
Hebrews 12:1-2
Ephesians 3:18
Hebrews 11: 6