December has always been difficult for me, for many reasons and for many years. For most of my life I felt like an onlooker, a bystander on the outside of the mirth and light that seemed to fill the hearts and homes of other families. I came to believe that something was intrinsically wrong with me, that I was marred in some deep way so I couldn't muster up joy if I tried.

Once I tried to explain this to a mentor and I remember that instead of being heard, I was put to shame for not entering into the joy of the season. They said that the darkness and heaviness I felt every December was evidence of a dark and heavy heart that only repentance could cure. Repentance, they said, was to enter into that joy, wrap the gifts in merry colors, light the tree, sing the carols—enact until the action took root and my heart was changed.

I tried this. At the end of every November, I put up a tree, I made lists and checked them twice, I played the carols, I went to the parties, I pretended a joy I did not feel. And every December 26th, once the gifts were unwrapped and the food was eaten and I felt free to take the tree down, I breathed deep and felt again free.

I thought this was because it meant January was on the horizon, a time to do-over, begin again, or begin again again. I have always loved beginnings and do-overs and a chance to make a change. But as every year as that sigh grew deeper and the palpable light felt brighter, I knew something else, something almost spiritual, almost transcendental was happening in my soul. Something I needed to pay attention to.

I grew up like many nominal Christians and Evangelicals, with a nominal understanding of Advent, relegated mostly to wreaths and chocolate calendars. But the waiting always felt, I don't know, a put on of sorts. The lights were lit, the tree was bursting with ornaments and gifts, the songs incessant, and the parties in plenty. It felt like we were pretending to be waiting but in actuality, the wait was too hard and so we spiritualized the rush, coating it in words like Joy and Light. But how does light break through unless there are shadows all around it?

This dissonance in my soul was trying to tell me something. It was trying to tell me that we cannot pretend our way into joy or hope or light or love. That trees and gifts and carols are not a means to an end, but a feast after the end has been made clear. The people around me wanted to celebrate Christmas all season long and then pack it away neatly. But what if it was meant to be the other way around? What if the slow crawl toward the coming light was meant to be slow, even agonizing, dark and growing darker? What if the heaviness I felt was pregnant with expectation and not the birthday of the King, not yet? What if knowing that the light has come and is coming again, frees us to intentionally enter into the shadows for a short time, to feel what our brothers and sisters of old felt, and what we still feel as we wait—again—for the coming of our King?

I finally came to understand that the heaviness I felt in December—and still feel—was nothing to be ashamed of, and instead of being evidence of a dark heart was instead proof of a soft heart. My soul is tender to spiritual realities and I'm no longer ashamed of that, nor do I see it as a fatal flaw. My spirit feels what Christians for ages and ages and ages have been doing every December. I am not a bystander into the merry celebrations of others, I am a participant and witness with the Church for most of history.

Advent feels dark because it is dark. It feels heavy because it is heavy. If your soul and spirit feel a dissonance this month, at odds with friends and neighbors and family, instead of trying to enact your way into a changed heart, instead thank your heart and the Spirit of God inside of you for making you tender and aware of this spiritual reality. The King has come but he has also not yet come, and we wait, with hope, in dim light for his coming again.