Christmas should be the happiest day of the year. It’s the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. When we’re in a season of pain and healing, the feelings and emotions don’t stop.
When I was a kid, we lived in the same state as our entire family. I spent Christmas surrounded by both sides of grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and both parents. Now, we live in a different state than our family, my parents are divorced, and a lot of our family members have gone to Heaven.
For a while, when we weren’t visiting our family or when our family wasn’t visiting us, Christmas was just me and my mom. This year, it’s me, my mom, her fiancee, his daughter, and our family friend that we have “adopted” into our family. I’m so incredibly thankful and blessed to have people to spend Christmas with, but I still find myself longing for it to be the same again. Christmas won’t be as large as it once was for a very long time. It probably won’t be the old size until I’m a grandma.
I’m also experiencing pain from other areas of my life, that seem to be broken forever. The pain doesn’t take a vacation just because it Christmas. It’s still very much there, and it feels like it has intensified because of the holiday.
The truth is, Christmas isn’t about the pain I feel, or the number of people that choose to celebrate Christmas with us, it’s about the birth of Jesus. I’m still in pain, and I cried within the first hour of waking up today, but I have to put myself aside because I’m not the one that matters. You know when your friend achieved something that you didn’t, but to be a good friend, you still had to be happy for them and celebrate? That’s the feeling I have this Christmas, and I might have that feeling for years to come. It’s hard, and I know Jesus understands that I’m in pain and that I’m desperately trying to cope, but I have to find the tiny bit of joy that’s left in my heart to celebrate.
I ordered “It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way” by Lysa TerKeurst, because she wrote it out of severe pain, a pain that I can’t imagine going through. When I write a blog post about the (I’m sure numerous) things I’ve learned from her book, I will link it here.
I hope you can’t relate to the pain I’m feeling, but I know that a lot of people do. I will be praying for all of you who do have this pain in your heart. You are not alone.
