The Cycle Stops Here

With Christmas just around the corner, I've spent the month writing about the value of gifts beyond material things—gifts that don't come with price tags and receipts. And as I've built contrasts between the lasting impact of childhood neglect and the power of trauma recovery through connection, I've spent a great deal of time rediscovering what restoration through love really looks like.

The truth is, the gifts that matter most are rarely the ones we open on Christmas morning. They're the gifts we receive daily from the people who love us: emotional safety, a sense of belonging, mindful connection. These are the hope of compassion in action, the blessings of feeling seen and being known. The mutual recognition of dignity and humanity that brings personal growth and relational healing.

Sometimes we open these gifts slowly, because hope after trauma comes with a heaviness we don't know how to hold yet. Sometimes we let them sit, neglected and unopened, because healing generational trauma looks like a sanctified space we don't feel worthy of—or because safe relationships invite us into a sacred presence that doesn't seem real. Sometimes we overlook those gifts entirely, never recognizing what they are.

We talk about healing from trauma like it's beautiful and inspiring. Like post-traumatic growth and breaking generational cycles is as simple as healing the inner child, setting boundaries, and redefining family connections. Like empowerment after abuse is easy.

It's so much more. It's new confidence. It's the determination to see your own worth, to believe in your own value, even when the people around you can't—or won't. It's rebuilding trust in the embodied faith of a chosen family that fits together when families of origin fall apart. It's spiritual healing at the deepest level.

And it's somehow both the simplest and most soul-deep part of what we mean when we recognize Jesus as the incarnation of God with us.

"No. Sorry, no room." The innkeeper stood in the half-closed doorway, his lips pursed as he shook his head.

She clutched the belly poorly hidden by scarves and traveling robes, schooling her face to mask the pain. She'd been aching all day, and the baby was still. She was young, but she knew the signs; it was almost time.

"Please," Joseph said quietly. "My wife is pregnant."

The innkeeper arched his brows. "Oh, we know," he said. "And we know she's not your wife, either."

Mary closed her eyes as the child shifted in her womb. She knew the truth, but she wasn't deaf. She heard the rumors, too, the way the people gossiped about her. The unwed small-town girl, swollen with child. She'd tried to tell them about the angel. About the promise of hope. They thought she was crazy—or lying. Or both. The baby moved again, twisting in the small space of late pregnancy, and Mary's terrified eyes met the cold face of the innkeeper.

He sighed. "Look, there's a stable around the way. You can sleep there."

* * *

My pastor set the illustration almost in passing, but three weeks later I'm still caught by the cruelty of what those moments might have been like. I keep flashing back to similar moments in my own life. Eighteen years old, heartbroken and sobbing as the life I anticipated drained from my womb—and the doctor barely looked up from his clipboard as he said, "Some babies just aren't meant to be."

Maybe he thought I was young and foolish, but I was married and we were excitedly planning to love that baby. I had read every book I could get my hands on, studied fetal development, written a birth plan. I knew which fruits my baby had raced to outgrow. I quit smoking, quit caffeine. And I had just bought belly headphones, so my child could listen to Mozart in the womb. He or she was going to be brilliant.

I puked all the way through my second pregnancy. And yet, in those moments when I first held the warm, wriggling body of my oldest daughter, none of it mattered. I wasn't even a Christian then, but I prayed with every desperate fiber of my soul that this child would have it better than I did. And in many ways, she has. But not all.

Violent death threats and frightening encounters marked the death toll on my marriage, and by the time my daughter was two, I was a single mom living in fear. My daughter was beauty in the ashes of what my life might have been...even when I found a church filled with people who saw the single mom without caring about her story.

They liked it when I met someone new. It tied things up in a nice, neat little bow, where it was easier to pretend all was well. Five years later, when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter, the pastor's wife threw my baby shower.

No one talked about the fact that my youngest daughter's father and I were not married—because after five years of court dates where I was the only one who showed up, I wasn't even divorced yet. But they knew.

And I thought of them as I thought of Mary, standing in the doorway of the inn. I thought of how she felt when everything she'd thought her life would be turned upside down. No longer a girl, not yet a woman, but full of life and carrying the weight of impossible shame. In her culture she would have at least been shunned, if not actually stoned to death, her swollen belly the very evidence of loose morals and sinful behavior.

At the full term of her pregnancy, she might have been longing for the guidance of her mother. At the very precipice of giving birth, she would have been desperately lonely for the comforts of home...and simultaneously grieving the loss of those comforts due to her unpopular circumstances.

But then the contractions hit. The water broke. And as the baby took his first breath in a dim-lit, dusty cave, the young female body did what it was made to do—it finished the job of creating new life.

I like to think that for just a moment, Mary forgot the pressure of promise that lay on her baby boy. That for just a moment, as she held his warm, wriggling body and looked into endless eyes that could see all of time, every moment of shame and rejection fell away. I hope she forgot her fear of the cultural curse that came with her pregnancy.

Because as the world around her refused to make room, a little boy from Heaven called her "home."

*****

For me, Christmas has always been a reminder that God didn't wait for the world to become safe, orderly, or compassionate before He entered it. He came into the mess covered in the slime of human birth. Into the misunderstanding of a good girl burdened by a bad reputation. He came into the lifelong shame of inescapable scandal that served an unyielding buffet of rejection in every flavor.

There was no room—and He showed up anyway. For me. And for you.

In Genesis, the Bible says God hovered over the waters. Four thousand years later, the Gospel tells us God stopped hovering, stopped holding back, became flesh, and dwelt among us. And in doing so? In coming so close he could taste both the joy of a favorite food and the heartbreak of a friend's betrayal, he broke something that had been passed down for generations: the lie that worth must be earned, that belonging is conditional, that love is reserved for the deserving.

This is how generational curses end—not through perfection, but through presence. Not through denial of the past, but through its redemption. When love shows up, safety replaces fear, and someone chooses to stay.

Christian or not, I think we could all do with a Christmas season that doesn't need louder joy or shinier celebration. Maybe we just need the courage to make room. To notice the overlooked. To choose kindness, even if it costs us time, comfort, or convenience. Because when we choose to value presence over performance and peace over perfection, we write love over fear and fill "unworthy" stories with hope.

Because the Christ who entered the world through borrowed space still walks willingly into places where we feel unwanted, unseen, or unsure. He doesn’t need us to prove ourselves, he just comes to stay. And when we open the door to love that doesn't leave, he offers the hope that helps us...

Life is fragile, but we’re stronger when we share it. Every day we wake up is another unopened gift, sometimes heavy, sometimes light, but always worth unwrapping. If my words helped you feel seen today, I'd love to keep sharing moments like this with you—each week, always free, and right there in your inbox.