If Your Heart Is Absolutely Broken This Christmas Season, I Get It

Christmas and grief are a tough combination. Maybe this is your first Christmas season since you’ve lost a parent.

Maybe someone close to you is sick, dying, or struggling with substance abuse. Or maybe you’ve lost a child, a spouse or a sibling. Maybe you’ve lost your job.

Whatever the reason, you are struggling to celebrate this season, while it feels like the rest of civilization is throwing a great big party.

If your heart is absolutely broken this Christmas season, I get it.

The gifts and desserts and decorations are just temporary distractions from your heartache–surface attempts at normalcy.

It’s all downright exhausting, putting on a smile, pretending to be okay while you’re hurting.

If your heart is broken this Christmas, I get it. I see you.

And I’m giving you a pass.

It is okay to say, “I’m not okay. I’m grieving.”

It is okay to give yourself time and space and to decline invitations and obligations, even for things you do every year.

It is okay, even at Christmas.

You won’t say “no” forever. Eventually, you will come up for air, and celebrating will be easier.

You will remember your joy. In time.

Keep breathing. You will survive this season.

You are allowed, required even, to forget the frivolous holiday festivities and turn your cares over to the Christ child. He never intended for the celebration of his birth to feel like a burden.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. – Matthew 11:28 ESV

He will always give you rest.

A version of this post was originally published December 10, 2015.