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 Your Hut is On Fire

Source and Author Unknown

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, "God! How could you do this to me?" Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

The Moral of This Story: It's easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives...even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.