I have been seeing friends a little more often and the same conversation we have been having is that many of us are still homebodies and are having a difficult time adjusting to life after COVID. Our social activity doesn’t match many of our peers who seem to be out and about all the time. What I did manage to attend at the end of the year was the annual Christmas YCP Party. One of my close friends motivated me to go and I think God wanted me there! The family that usually opens their home for our party had a tragedy a few weeks before our celebration, they lost their son in a tragic accident. Yet, instead of cancelling the event the couple decided that they more than ever wanted their home full of young people and for attendees to share stories of their son.
After an hour of socializing it is customary for the hosts
to stop the party to bless the food and also to give a short speech to motivate
attendees to join YCP. –
The end of the year was quite challenging for me and my
family and as the holidays approached my usual Christmas spirit was
lacking. I am usually the one who decorates
the house, who puts up the lights, the nativities and the tree. Yet, this year I only managed to decorate the
outside of the house with lights and only because Dad did most of the work. Due to a family crisis, I had to seek therapy
and increase my medication because for the first time in over fifteen years my
anxiety was thru the roof and I think I had a bit of depression too.
So, when the party came around I wasn’t in the mood for it,
but I pushed myself. During the speech, the hosts spoke of their recent loss,
they spoke of their son and what he meant to them and how looking at all the
young people gathered who he had mingled with gave them joy. They asked us to seek them and share moments
we shared with their son, but what most impressed me was that even through such
an unforeseen loss the husband and wife spoke of their hope in God. I looked at them, clearly brokenhearted and
still praising God and finding so much comfort in their Catholic faith. Their hope was contagious and I thought of my
own crisis and I finally saw God’s hope.
I didn’t go home and decorate my entire house- but I
realized that in my anxious despair I became blinded to the reason for the
season. The incarnation of that babe
that came to save us all. I felt momentary
guilt for focusing on things that added to the darkness of my soul instead of
finding contentment in God becoming man and the implications of that
action. I needed people who were hurting
more than me to remind me to never loose hope. I drove home that night, light, knowing that
with time the challenges I was facing were going to pass. While, it was still the first year that no
inside decorations were on display – it was the first year that we visited
extended family to lean on them and being one big family was better than all
the decorations in the world. Moral of the
story; “one, there are always people hurting more than me and still find hope;
two, community/family helps a ton!”
