There was something about my Mom dying at Easter that helped me get through her death with hope and faith. I felt a strength and peace I didn’t know was possible getting me through that week and even though  the days and weeks afterward were hard, I pushed through my grief and was able to resume life or at least tried to.

So much for that strength, hope and faith thing. I’ve been going through the motions of the Christmas season trying to be merry, trying to be strong, trying to be a light while all the time dreading the “Different Christmas” I knew would be coming yet again.  Last week I wrote about how I had come to accept my different Christmas and the peace I felt in doing so last year. But I don’t feel so peaceful now.

As I sit here trying to write Christmas cards on the 20th day of December (a little late, I know), there are no joy-filled words flowing on to the stack of greeting cards I intended to send, just tears.  I find myself overwhelmed with loss. The loss of my mother, the loss of what  family had always been to me, the loss of ever experiencing my mother’s unique love at Christmas again, the loss of something that I struggle to even define except for loss…

I struggle with all the happy gatherings going on around me – they seem so foreign to my reality right now.  I used to delight in them; delight in the baking, decorating, and gift giving and all the things that gave “meaning” to Christmas. This year there has been no time for baking, not much to decorate, and I can ill afford my Christmas gifting pleasure.  I know that giving of myself to others is the only act that truly shows the meaning of Christmas and yet I can’t even seem to do that! How can a holiday that is filled with so much love, light, and joy hurt so much? How can I, someone who knows the truth, who knows the love and peace of Christ, feel so utterly alone and forlorn at this most wondrous time?  And why does the Classical Christmas station I am listening to play so many songs that seem so sad?

I have no words of light to share with you right now. Just a prayer that the peace of Christ will be with you all this Christmas. That you find Him in the ordinary and the extraordinary but most of all, find Him in your heart.

Seeking His light, so that I may shine it again.