As we come to the end of the year and the celebration of the birth of Jesus, many of us will welcome friends and family into our celebrations. Our time will be filled with catching up on the year’s events and celebrating the joy of Christ with one another. I think that’s why we love classic Christmas songs like “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” These songs remind us of gathering together and being with people we can be ourselves around—a community of love and belonging. Christmas often brings these welcome visitors to our doorstep. However, many will not experience the welcome visitation of community, belonging, and joy; the visitor they will welcome is grief. The grief of a loved one who has passed, a missed opportunity, a relationship that has soured, or a tragic and hurtful circumstance can alter the way we experience the joy of the season. Where do you turn when grief shows up? I pray this chapter from Gospel Shaped Emotions points the way to Jesus who will weep with us and still lead us despite where we find ourselves this season.
When Grief Shows Up
Then Martha said to Jesus “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” —John 11:21–22
Grief will show up on your doorstep at one time or another, and death will not always be the delivery man. We can grieve several experiences in our lives. The loss of a relationship, the choices our adult children make, the lost opportunity or the promotion that passed us over—these may well cause our hearts to grieve. The emotion of grief is one of the most powerful that we will experience in our lifetimes. Notice it’s not a matter of if we will experience grief; we will experience grief. There is a silver lining to the darkness of grief, however, that we will explore in the following chapters.
Continue reading