Help me welcome author and guest blogger Linda Wood Rondeau as she shares about dealing with grief at any time of the year, but particularly during the holidays.

Every Christmas Helen tries to hide at home and wish the season away for the painful past still pierces the heart each time the mistletoe is hung. Her friends make Herculean efforts to draw her out of this seasonal agoraphobia. She acquiesces out of loyalty, but secretly aches for the occasion to end.

Helen’s fiancé was killed during the Christmas holiday just days before their wedding. Christmas, to her, only serves to remind her of the happiness so cruelly yanked away.  Helen gives much to her community and is one who would never be characterized as embittered. Yet every year at Christmas, the unwanted memories are revisited.

There are many like Helen, shunning the season, fearful they will be inflicted with recollection. Though we try to be compassionate, few truly understand the depth of sorrow the season emotes for those who grieve.

Our Savior was the first to be acquainted with grief.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
     a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
     he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
     and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
     stricken by him, and afflicted.
 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
     he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
     and by his wounds we are healed.

(Isaiah 53:3-5 NIV)

I believe God knew that first Christmas what the future held for His only son. Angels trumpeted the long awaited arrival of the Messiah, and shepherds knelt before a holy infant as a virgin mother cradled her first-born. While the world rejoiced, perhaps the Father mourned. For this birth would culminate in sacrifice.

When the Father viewed the rustic cradle, did He see the Cross? When Mary wrapped Jesus in the swaddling clothes, did God see the crown of thorns? When shepherds worshipped, did He see His one and only Son ridiculed, scorned, stripped of dignity, beaten and scourged? When Mary twirled the babe’s fingers within her own, did the Father see the nails that would pierce them?

That first Christmas night, only the Father knew the events to someday unfold. The world celebrated the promise of salvation not knowing the price yet to be paid, but planned from the beginning of time. Only God knew of Heaven’s future loss. And I wonder if His grief is renewed each yuletide as men continue to scorn the gift He gave.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 NIV

Check out the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Along-Linda-Wood-Rondeau/dp/1649498403

The print edition is currently on sale for the Christmas season from now until Dec 29. Makes a great Christmas gift for the devotional reader on your list.

*tree image: Photo by Cameron Stewart on Unsplash

*manger image: Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash