December 13

This time of year can be difficult.

Not for all of us, but for many of us.

It’s partly just the nature of winter – shorter days, longer nights, feeling like it’s dark all the time, wondering why it feels like midnight at 6 PM.  Seasonal affective disorder is real, and many of us just feel worn thin, more easily tending towards depression, or just sad or listless.

But it’s also because this is a time of year that, for many of us, is about being with our loved ones.  And, while spending time with loved ones is beautiful, it is also complicated and brings all sorts of baggage.

Maybe you have a painful history with your family: maybe your parents never accepted you for who you really are, or maybe you’re estranged from a loved one who you wish you could see this time of year but can’t.  Maybe your family relationships are too painful and this time of year reminds you of them in ways that hurt.

Or, maybe it’s a matter of loss.  During a time of year that’s so focused on being together, it’s hard when we are unable to be together – maybe because family lives too far away (perhaps they are deployed?) or maybe because they are gone.  Broken relationships, divorce, death – these are things we tend to feel especially deeply this time of year.  If you’ve always spent Christmas with your spouse or your parent, but they have died and this year and you have to do Christmas without them, it can be incredibly difficult.

I don’t have any words to make that pain go away.  I don’t know of any way to make it magically better.

But I do know this: we have a God who is acquainted with our sorrows (see Isaiah 53 and Hebrews 4).  God knows what it means to feel pain and experience loss.  God has become one of us in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus, God experienced pain, trauma, even death.  Jesus knows what it is like to lose a loved one, to celebrate a family gathering without someone who you wish could be there, but who can’t.  Jesus knows what it is like to lose a loved one to death.  Jesus died (and was raised again) to save us, but he also lived for us – and living in this broken world includes experiencing all sorts of losses.  

So, if your Christmas season is painful, or if there’s someone who you miss this time of year, know this: God is with you.  God is holding you close, whether you can feel it or not.  God has not abandoned you.  Advent is a season when we remember that the world needs to be healed – that we need God to fix what is broken.  Your pain is a reminder of what is broken about the world.  And your grief is a prayer for God to fix it.

In the end, God will wipe away every tear from every eye.  In the end, God will heal every hurt and fix everything that is broken.  In the end, even death will be defeated.

And, in the meantime, grief is totally reasonable.During Advent, we grieve what is broken.  And we hold onto hope that, in the end, the brokenness does not get the final word.  In the end, all shall be put right.  That’s the Good News of God with us.