Life Can be Hard at Christmas

For the last couple of weeks, a friend and I have been talking off and on about how life can be hard at Christmas even when we have great family and friends who love us. Christmas is a tender time for the human heart. The holiday season boasts of peace, joy and love, yet we hurt over losses, relationship challenges, lost or stagnant dreams, and missed goals. Emotions are stirred up and can crash into each other and we experience many things. The season of hope over the birth of Christ can feel more like an open season on our emotions than a season of hope.

Why is this? Why does the most hope-filled and joyful holiday of the year seem to trigger anything from a sense of melancholy to intense feelings of grief and loneliness? Could it be that the enemy of our soul might try to distract us from the true meaning of Christmas?

Jesus was born as the hope of the world. The Christmas holiday celebrates the birth of the Son of God Who chose to enter into human history by living as a man and dying for our sins. Being forgiven of our sins and escaping their penalty is a message of great hope. It is a message and a story that the devil will do everything he can to stop. Two thousand years have gone by, yet the story of a child born in a barn with angels announcing His birth is still told. I believe the devil knows he cannot stop the telling of the story so he uses other tactics like conflict, loneliness, and grief to distract us. He also uses depression and sickness among other things. The goal? To get us to doubt God’s love and goodness toward us so that we will not believe in the Son that was born to us, the One Who can save us and speak hope, peace, and love to our hearts.

I don’t know about you, but I experienced many painful emotions this holiday season. In spite of these emotions, I made sure I focused on the hope and love that only God can give. I refused to doubt God’s love and goodness toward me even in the midst of grief and loneliness. You know what happened? God provided comfort for me in many ways right in the middle of the grief and loneliness. God was so creative. He blessed me with the opportunity to have a new Christmas tree for a room in my house where I have wanted to put one for ten years, a father who put lights up on the outside of my house, a daughter and new son-in-law who filled my stocking when they came to visit on Christmas Day, and a friend who let me cry on her shoulder (literally!) when I was hurting too much to keep it inside.

Christmas truly is the season of love and hope. And if the season triggered despair, discouragement, depression, grief, loneliness, or any other painful emotion for you, hold on tightly to hope anyway and trust God’s love more than you ever have before.

When the Time Was Right: God Can be Trusted

I love the phrase in the King James Version of the Bible, “It came to pass…” This phrase is used almost 500 times and the majority of the time it is used to refer to God’s predictions coming true. Throughout history, God spoke to people about what He was going to do. One of those things He spoke about was providing His only Son to be our Savior. He first spoke about this to Adam and Eve (the story is found in Genesis Chapter 3). It took thousands and thousands of years before God made good on His Word. And when He did, Jesus was born.

A contemporary phrase for “It came to pass” would be “When the time was right.” Sometimes we want what we want and we want it now. We want the pain to go away, to stop feel lonely, to get a positive report from the doctor, to find a better paying job, to have a relationship problem solved, to change a bad habit, or to receive deliverance from an addition. These are all good things to have and we might wonder why God doesn’t provide the answer to our prayer immediately. I admit I do not understand God’s timing and never will. However, I have experienced His timing and know it is perfect. God will never arrive one minute early and He will never arrive one minute late. When the time is right, all the things God has for You will be provided.

“…the time came [when the time was right] for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:6-7).

Even though it took a long time to come to pass, God kept His promise to give mankind a Savior. Whatever you do, do not give up on God. Trust Him and wait patiently for Him (Psalm 37:7). And when the time is right, God will provide for you.