39 results for tag: Christmas
A Weary World, A Weary Heart, and a Hope That Still Holds
I am so sorry for the rough road you may have walked to get to this day. Christmas Eve can make grief feel even thicker, especially if this month hasn’t looked the way you hoped it would. Maybe you didn’t end up doing every tradition you planned. Maybe the holidays felt heavier than you expected. Maybe joy has been hard to access this year. If that’s true for you, I want to gently remind you: it’s okay to be weary. It’s okay to not be okay, to not feel full of holiday cheer, and to not have had the capacity for everything you hoped to do. The hurts, heartaches, and exhaustion can feel especially intense tonight.
When you’re pregnant ...
When Hope Feels Fragile
There are seasons of grief when hope feels impossibly small. Not gone, but fragile. Like something you’re holding gently in the palm of your hand because you’re afraid if you grip it too tightly, it might crumble. The holiday season can make that feeling even more noticeable. Everywhere you look, people are talking about joy, peace, and light, and those words can feel so far from what’s happening inside your heart. You may find yourself thinking, “I want those things. I really do. But I’m not there yet.” And that’s okay.
After I lost my daughter, I remember trying to step back into the rhythm of life and faith. I wanted to feel ...
When God Feels Far Away
There are days in grief when God feels painfully distant. You know the verses, you’ve heard the promises, and you’ve prayed the prayers, but there is still this quiet ache inside you asking, “God, where are You?” I remember reading Scripture in those early weeks after losing my daughter and feeling like the words were flat, like they weren’t sinking into me at all. I would try to pray, and all I could manage were small fragments of sentences. And sometimes not even that. Sometimes it was only tears and thoughts I couldn’t speak.
It can be so hard to admit when God feels far away. I think there’s a subtle shame attached to it, as if ...
When Grief Makes You Go Quiet
December has a way of making grief louder. Or maybe it just makes everything else louder, and your grief feels even more out of place than usual. Everyone seems to be moving on with their lives. They’re hanging stockings, making plans, and doing their best to live something that looks “merry,” while you’re still sitting in the same ache.
I remember the silence that lived inside me after losing my daughter. I didn’t know how to answer simple questions anymore. Someone would text, “How are you today?” and I’d stare at the words because I didn’t know where to begin. Nothing had changed. My baby was still gone. My heart still ...
What Child is This?
One of my favorite Christmas songs is What Child Is This? This haunting melody draw me in to reflect on the lowly humanity of Christ and then worship Him as Savior. Come reflect with me for a moment on the humanity of Christ and the world into which He was born. It is in this lowly humanness that we can find deep comfort and hope during a holiday season made more painful by the loss of a child.
“What Child is this who, laid to rest On Mary’s lap is sleeping? Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, While shepherds watch are keeping?
Who is this who lives with the lowly, Sharing their sorrows, knowing their hunger? This is Christ, ...
Motivated By Love
I was eight and a half months pregnant that first Christmas in my grief. Just four months before, we had received a diagnosis for our unborn son that left us knowing that, barring a miracle from God, we’d be saying goodbye to him way sooner than we ever imagined.
There was something so significant that year about being pregnant at Christmastime. I had low energy, both physically and emotionally, and so in some ways Christmas became a little bit simpler. But, honestly, it became a little bit more meaningful too.
I would go about my days, obviously with child, and I would think about what we were about to celebrate: Christmas. The birth of Jesus. ...
Hope for the Hurting this Christmas
The people of Israel were waiting for the coming of the promised Messiah. They were living under the threat of the Assyrians, who would later bring the northern kingdom of Israel into captivity, when the prophet Isaiah delivered news of a child who would come to dissipate the darkness and redeem the world from sin. This birth announcement was a glimmer of hope in the midst of the fear and sorrow.
“For to us a Child is born,
to us a Son is given;
and the government shall be upon His shoulder,
and His name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 9:6
We live in the space between the ...
The Suffering Servant Has Come
As I approach Christmas, I can feel that there is—inherently—a sense of longing that swells this season, especially having lost my child on this earth. I have a biblical longing for all to be made right, for the gap between this world and the next to be gone, for the righteous King of all to return—not as a baby this time, but as the One coming on the clouds carrying all victory over sin and death. The reality that this world is missing what I most desire is all the more pronounced through my unique, acute, and raw awareness of how empty this life can feel. And yet—do you feel the rush of this season too? I don't mean the rush of mall vis...
A Release from Remembering
November arrives and as the holidays come within reach, I feel a near physical ache. Holidays have a built in nostalgia—have you ever noticed that? Reflection is inherent in the joy of a holiday celebration.
We look back on the year and remember its highs and lows; we take pictures to capture our family and friends as they are right now, so we can remember in years to come. We reflect and remember, and for grievers there is an inescapable wondering that happens at the holidays. We remember what we have lost. What would she have wanted for Christmas this year? How big would I have been with the baby by now?
These are questions that linger in my ...
To Gaze on the Christ-Child
One silent night, over 2,000 years ago, God came to the earth as a baby. Immanuel. God with us. A baby who came to live so he could die, and would die so we could live.
This is the hope of Christmas.
This is the hope of Christ.
But when your heart is broken and bleeding and the sting of commercial holiday cheer intensifies it all, that hope may not bring much comfort. Not because the Christ-child is not enough, but because we push what is offered away.
The lights glisten on the tree. The stockings hang over the fire. Familiar tunes are sung about joy and being merry.
While the world is writing lists long with desires of the newest ...
