When we grieve, we’re not suddenly “new” just because December 31 turns into January 1. Our grief may be too fresh to even care much for the promise of a New Year. No mere turn of the calendar can dictate that we suddenly move from disbelief and shock to the reality of life without the one we love. Grief creates its own calendar, one that defies the rhythmic structure of ordinary time.

As the light of God shines into our grief this Christmas, as children of light may we claim the gift of God’s love in the certainty that Emmanuel—the light and love of God’s eternal presence—is with us always. 

At this time of year, many of us struggle to reconcile the push/pull of seasonal happiness with our own deep yearning for something deeper, something richer that adds meaning to our relationship with God and creates a more personal experience of God present to us in Christ at Christmas.

Whatever your understanding or expectation of Christmas, Advent is a time to look within, be silent, and listen for the voice of God, especially for those who grieve. During this season of waiting, we reflect, meditate, and prepare our heart to experience the love of God alive and present to us in the world in the person of Jesus, the Savior sent to redeem humankind.

As the sounds and sights of the season propel us toward Christmas, in the days ahead many of us will struggle with darkness. When we grieve during the holidays, it takes an almost superhuman effort to resist the darkness of grief.

On October 3, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued a Proclamation, “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” At that historic time of divisive war, no one was spared from grief. Everyone lost someone or something - a loved one, their property, their human dignity, or an old way of life.

Though we may master forgiveness, forgetting is sometimes easier said than done. Even if we’ve done the work of forgiveness, when the dying embers of troubled memories are fanned to life by some reminder, especially during the holiday season, it’s not always our first impulse to douse the flames with the water of forgiving and forgetting. Sometimes we’d rather just get cozy, make some s’mores, and enjoy the roaring bonfire of our hurt and indignation.

As slowly the holiday season begins to encroach on the sacred space reserved for the one we love and now grieve, many experience a sense of dread and foreboding. We are susceptible to every reminder of the one we love who will no longer be part of the occasions of our life as those around us feast and celebrate. In the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay, “The presence of that absence is everywhere.” Inevitably, grief will be part of our holiday gathering with friends and family.

The experience of grief is intimate and personal. After the final words of comfort and encouragement are spoken, family and guests depart, the flowers wilt, and the last casserole is frozen or consumed, we withdraw to a place of emotional and spiritual freedom where we can memorialize our loved one more privately than publicly. Whether we invite others one by one into the sacred space of our grief, or share our story of life and love in community, or we open our heart to close family members, acquaintances, or even relative strangers, we put our saints in circulation.

The hardscrabble faith of grief is altogether different from an unbruised faith that has not been tried and tested by a firsthand experience of death, life’s most certain inevitability. If our world has been inverted by the death of one we love, for a while our faith may seem muddled as we ask hard questions that test the truth of what we say we believe.

As the world watched in stunned disbelief, on August 8, 2023, the historic town of Lahaina in Hawaii was all but destroyed by raging wildfires driven by high winds. According to Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen, “Tragedy that hits one of us is felt by all of us. These past few days, the resolve of our families, businesses and visitors have been tested like never before in our lifetime.”  

If you are grieving the death of someone you love, you may be searching for answers to some of life’s most challenging questions, including the ‘why?’ of death. After my beloved husband  died, I was desperate to understand what happened. I knew that in order to go through grief, I needed answers to the ‘how’ and ‘why’ to make sense of my grief before I could move forward again in life. Although I sorted out the ‘why’ of his illness, the ‘why’ of my grief was another matter entirely.