Come lift up your sorrows and offer your pain.
Come make a sacrifice of all your shame.
There in your wilderness, He’s waiting for you
to worship Him with your wounds – for He’s wounded, too.
Michael Card
Christmas can be difficult when you’re grieving. We know it should be a time of family and togetherness, and mostly, a time of celebrating the birth of Christ – His great gift of Himself to us. But Christmas can feel like a fresh wound for those walking through a season of sorrow. When we lose someone we love, the unknowable depths of that loss are often revealed in the light of Christmas. At arguably the happiest time of the year, the place where love belongs can feel profoundly empty.
When someone we love dies, we find comfort in our family and friends in those first several days and weeks. Later, it’s harder. Everyone returns to “normal life,” and we are no longer surrounded by those we love. I will never forget three months after my uncle’s death, my six-year-old niece sent a sympathy card to my mom that read, “I know that you’re feeling sad, but you can cry when you want to.” It reminded me of this song by Michael Card. I first heard this song in 2016 when I saw Card in concert. It gave me such hope and freedom to hear that my sorrow is acceptable unto God. Yes, friend; crying out to God in our sorrow (what the Bible calls lament) is an acceptable and biblical form of worship (see Ps. 3, 10, 13, 17, 31, 42, and many more). Even Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, over the death of his dear friend Lazarus, and over the coming crucifixion as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Sometimes, I think, we believe that we must always be happy and smile, even (or especially) when we don’t feel like it; that it’s somehow “more Christian” to manufacture joy than to wait (sometimes with excruciating patience) for it. It’s like we’ve come to expect the light of joy to turn on like our household lights – with a simple flip of a switch – rather than the slow and cold rising of dawn. And perhaps it does, at times; but I hope those “at times” never bring us to despise the rising sun, because sorrow can last longer than any of us are comfortable with.
This Christmas season, as we take into our hearts the Advent – the coming of Christ, I ask you to pray for those who grieve; encourage them to lift their sorrows to God; and comfort them as you can. If it is you who grieves, I want to be the one to tell you – Christ came so that he could be with you in this very moment. He is near. He longs to receive you and all your pain. Lift your sorrow, dear friend, and worship him with your wounds. He is with you. He is with us. Immanuel.
From my heart to yours,
