When Christmas Hurts

When Christmas Hurts

The stores are filled with bustling shoppers. Christmas music plays on every aisle. Houses are trimmed with twinkling lights that glow cheery through the crisp night. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The happiest season of all.

But sometimes Christmas hurts. Sometimes it is a glaring reminder of mistakes made. Of the way things used to be. Of loved ones who are missing. Of kids who are grown and gone. Sometimes Christmas is so dark and lonely that just the work of breathing in and out during this season seems overwhelming.

When everyone seems to have it all together. When happy families invade your mailbox with their picture-perfect holiday in the form of a greeting card.

When the world seems to be at peace while you are in agony. When every cheer-filled minute of every festive day just makes your heart break a little bit more. When the act of being happy seems like an impossibility.

There are no quick and easy fixes for a broken heart. But there is hope for healing. There is faith for the doubter. There is love for the lonely.

These treasures won’t be found under a Christmas tree or in a family tradition or even in the way things used to be. Hope, faith, love, joy, peace, and just the strength to make it through the next 24 hours, are all wrapped up in a baby boy, born to this earth as its Savior. Eternally wise and infinitely powerful, His weak little frame was swaddled tight, snuggled into the hay in a box meant for feeding animals. And He is the hope for the broken-hearted.

Pain is real. He felt it. Heartbreak is inevitable. He experienced it. Tears come. His did. Betrayal happens. He was betrayed.

He knows. He sees. He understands. And He loves deeply, in ways we can’t even fathom.

When your heart breaks at Christmas, when the pain comes, when the whole thing seems like more than you can bear, you can look to the manger. You can look to the cross. And, you can remember the hope that comes with Christmas.

The pain won’t leave. But the hope will swaddle you tight. And Jesus, in His gentle mercy, will hold you until you can breathe again. What you long for at Christmas may never be. But He was, He is, and He is to come. You can trust that, even when Christmas hurts.