Oh sweet friend, just writing this post makes my heart feel pangs of sadness and puts my stomach in knots. Thinking about you makes tears run down my cheeks. I understand all too well as just a few years ago I was you. I was the girl who couldn’t find her Christmas, no matter where she looked.
I was the girl with an empty, aching heart.
If thoughts of the Holidays cause you to feel sad and make you want to sleep until mid-January when every single trace of Christmas is gone, you’re not alone. I was right there with you.
A few years ago I walked into the holiday season with fresh wounds, and I was blindsided by how a season I once found comforting brought additional pain. The holidays just felt so different. I pushed it aside as much as I could, until the obvious was staring me straight in the face.
That calendar year had brought so much suffering: we had lost loved ones, I had lost a dear precious friend, our family didn’t get together anymore on Christmas Eve, I spent most days sick, my dog was aging and couldn’t walk some days, I didn’t have any close friends to do fun Christmas stuff with, and we were walking through a family crisis. Sin, death, and brokenness seemed ever-present, and the raw grief prevented me from celebrating the holidays like I used to.
I put up my tree, made handmade decorations, shopped till I dropped, baked cookies, watched Rudolph, burnt yummy smelling candles…and still nothing.
I still couldn’t feel Christmas. Why couldn’t I FEEL it? I ran down the to-be-happy-at-Christmas checklist, put marks in all the boxes, and I still wasn’t happy.
The tears flowed freely. Anger took place front and center most days. I was distant. I was heartbroken. The times I was alone were the hardest. In the quiet I would remember all I had lost, all the heartache, and I cried more than I care to admit. Daily, I alternated between trying to talk myself out of it and justifying my feelings.
But underneath, I was carrying wounds ripped open by the reminders of relationships and situations that are no longer. And it hurt. And it was hard. And I wasn’t sure what to do with it all. My heart was just sad.
Christians are not supposed to be like this, especially not at the time of year when we are celebrating the birth of Jesus! We are meant to be shiny happy people radiating His love to all who pass us. We are to be beacons of light, not sobbing over Christmas cookies.
We were celebrating Jesus entering the world just to die for us. And I was still sad. Which made me feel guilty. That guilt then made me even sadder.
It’s just hard to navigate this stuff, especially when every store is blasting cheery tunes about the most wonderful time of the year!
It’s easy to be thankful while traveling through beautiful seasons of joy, but it was an ugly fight for gratitude when suffering had taken over that journey. Looking back that holiday season is one of my favorites because I can see how suffering unveiled my eyes and enabled me to celebrate the holiday’s truest meaning.
I realized that year that the sad, lonely, empty spaces in my broken heart are exactly what that Baby born in a manger came to fill.
The One who was born in a dirty, hidden manger is the God who is still filling our hidden, empty, rugged places today! He is a savior for the sad. A savior for the heartsick. A savior for the lost. A savior for the mourning. A savior for us all.
I’m going to be honest. I wish I could give you a magical cure, to offer words that would dry up your tears and heal your aching heart. What I found was no matter how much I tried to talk myself out of it, it was just a valley I had to walk through. And that was okay.
Sometimes the holidays make us happy, sometimes they make us sad, and it’s okay to feel both!
Friend, if you’re hurting this holiday season…It’s okay to hurt.
Maybe your heart is just too broken to talk about it to others. Or maybe you’ve shared your heart and are told to just “get over it” and “move on”. And maybe you feel like you should be over it, but you just don’t know how to be. I want to tell you this…it’s okay.
If there is anything I’ve learned over the past few years, it’s this. When God leads you through a valley, don’t close your eyes. Keep them open as wide as you can. Along the journey, even in the midst of the valley, there will be beautiful blessings prepared just for you.
I promise you, some day you will find joy in the Holidays again. God has joy planned for you!! At first, it may come in a little smile here or there. Or you find yourself actually singing along to a Christmas carol while walking through the grocery store. Embrace it! Smile. Laugh. Hug. Eat. Fellowship. And when the tears come, embrace them too. Cry over Christmas cookies if you need to. Be honest and brave.
Healing will come. Laughter will return. Joy will emerge from this dark season. A Holiday season will feel almost normal again.
And for now, in those empty spaces, make room for the Savior to dwell.
