Christmas is always one of my favorite times of the year. Christmas music, Christmas movies, colder weather, Christmas parties, Christmas decorations, Christmas lights. I love it all. I’m one of those people who would listen to Christmas music all year round if it was socially acceptable. I keep a nativity on display in our home all year round. I LOVE it.
But for as joyful as this season is for me, it can be equally as painful for many. So often the pain of a lost loved one, of distance between families, of fractured relationships becomes real and raw during the holiday season. I was reminded of these raw emotions this week as two families I know experienced loss. Two very different types of loss, but painful, heart wrenching loss none the less.
Life doesn’t stop because Christmas is near. There’s not a sudden 30 or 45 day reprieve from pain and heartache and fear that the road of life brings because we’re nearing the celebration of the Savior’s birth. Hearts break, dreams shatter, souls become weary.
But isn’t that what Jesus came for? The weary soul? My favorite Christmas song is O Holy Night. One night, one birth that changed the world forever. A Savior born so that you & I could have the hope of eternity. “The thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices.” But Jesus didn’t just come for the world and for eternity. He came for the single soul that is weary from the road of life. He came to be personal, real and relevant to me. To you.
He came to bring hope, to anchor us in hope, so that our weary souls can rejoice. So that in the midst of raw emotion, we can experience the thrill of hope that Christ’s birth allows for us. Hope that on the other side of eternity, we will be reunited with those we’ve lost. Hope that a doctor’s prognosis holds no power to God’s healing. Hope that the most fractured of relationships can be miraculously restored. Hope that a weary soul can find reason to rejoice.
If this Christmas season is one that finds your soul weary, cling to that thrill of hope that the Savior’s birth brought to this world. Cling to the hope that He extends to you now. Let your weary soul rest in Him and find in Him the thrill of hope that causes your weary heart to rejoice.
BethBates.Life 