Yesterday I saw a note on Facebook from a friend that this was the 10th anniversary of her Mom's death. Another friend just lost his wife to a 5 year battle with cancer. A longtime friend and fellow traveler is coming home after brain surgery on a cancerous tumor. Their outlook is uncertain.
I really do understand how hard the holidays can be. Even in the midst of the season of, what should be for Christians, overwhelming joy & gratitude. Many years ago my life as I knew it disappeared on the eve of Thanksgiving. I spent December that year trying to save my sanity, and was without the ones I loved the most for the first time ever on Christmas. In 1991 my grandfather died on New Years Eve. In 2003, my Mom died at only 68 in the first week of November. Six years later, my wife's Dad died one day from the anniversary of my Mom's death. A year later two days before Christmas, my mother-in-law fell suffering a severe head trauma (she survived that but passed 3 months later from unexpected complications). Others I am very close to have suffered this time of year - jailed, hospitalized, separation, death - and I have suffered with them.
Thanksgiving & Christmas can be hard. It is easy for me to descend into the dark memories. But our faith in Jesus and His promise that this life's tragedies are not the end has sustained me. Thanks to the Promise of Christmas; faith, joy, and hope scatters the darkness. God bless you and pour out on you a Very Merry Christmas.
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