Holiday Grief: Is it time to let go?

We enter into the holiday season this coming week. It’s a time of joy but also a time that reveals the pain of our losses. The holidays magnify the losses that we often try to deny.

Facing Loss During the Holidays

I’ve spoken to two people in the past day who have uninvited family members to Thanksgiving because their relationships are broken. That loss will hang in the air for them. And  I know there are many people who will experience their first Thanksgiving and Christmas without a loved one due to death, divorce, or distance.

How does one handle this loss? Well, it’s really no different than any other time of year. The pain is just more evident and hard to deny. But that can be a good thing because it might cause you to finally deal with your loss and not ignore it. 

Responding to Loss

Many people don't understand or appreciate what happens when they encounter a loss (a death, divorce, loss of job, financial setback, broken relationship, etc.). Too often people either ignore their grief or they get stuck in grief. Neither approach resolves the loss or allows grief to do its healing work. 

How Do You Deal with Loss?

Any loss leaves a hole in your heart. The question is: what will you do with that hole?  Here are three ways people often try to deal with the hole:

• Leave the hole empty and mourn forever. They never get over the loss.

• Kill the pain with addictive habits. This will lead to more losses in the long run.

• Deny the loss and fill the hole with busyness and distractions. This only delays the healing. When the busyness stops the pain remains.

The Grief Process Allows God to Rewrite Your Story.

But there is a fourth option. What if you sought God for healing? Healing takes place when you invite God to fill the hole in your heart rewrite your story, this time without whatever or whomever it was that you lost. Rewriting your story is especially important during the holidays. You need to experience them from a different perspective so they don’t become something you dread and endure.

Your new holiday story no longer has the presence of your loved one. It will be a new story, but it can still be good: just different. God wants to fill the hole in your heart. That is what grieving is all about...a process of renewal. But you have to let go of what was to embrace what will be.

Too often people cling to what was and get stuck in the pain and sadness of grief never accepting the good that God has for them.

Can you dare to imagine enjoying the holidays without your loved one? Do you believe that God is big enough to make that happen for you?

Learning to Let Go

The goal of grieving is to come to a place of acceptance with your loss. That requires letting go of your loved one. You don’t let go of your memories of them or the impact they’ve had on you. You treasure those things.

But you let go of your need to have them in your life today.  "Letting go" means that you don't insist that what was lost HAS TO EXIST for your happiness. "Letting go" means you are willing to entertain the idea that God can make good of your life without whomever or whatever it was that you lost. That includes the holidays.

Many people refuse to accept the idea of letting go. They feel cheated and want to hold a grudge against God or the universe for taking their loved one. Others fear that rewriting their story is a kind of insult or rejection of the person they lost. There are many reasons people get stuck in grief but it leads them to believe that their life will never be good again.

Finding Healing in the Holidays

But what if you embraced the pain of your loss during the holidays as a path to healing? What if you brought your pain to God and asked him to lead you to a place of acceptance where you could be grateful for your loved one but also open to a new life without them? Maybe you could pray something like this:

Father, I miss my loved one so much. You know what they meant to me and the pain I feel. I want to thank you for the years I had with them and all they meant to me. I trust that you will fill up this loss in my life and make me a new person without them. My life won’t be the same without them, but I believe it can still be good, in a new way. Please give me eyes to see this new life and enter into it, even during the holidays. Help me to enter into new experiences with new people as you rewrite my story. I look to you to do this work in me. Amen.

Letting Go is a Process. 

The hole in your heart doesn't fill up right away. That's why it's a grieving process. It's a time of mourning. And that's okay. That’s an important part of the human experience. The depth of our grief shows the depth of our love.

When a loved one, a life force, is gone from your life it creates a void. Their absence will obviously impact you. But God can fill that void over time. As Psalm 23 tells us, He restores our soul. 

When God rewrites your story, you aren’t the same person you were before. Old things have passed away… but new things have come enabling you to live a fulfilled life once again.

Enjoying the Holidays Again

It’s easy to ruin your holidays by thinking about who or what is missing. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can reframe your losses and enjoy the holidays again by bringing your pain to God and trusting him for renewal rather than assuming that the holidays are only something to be endured.

I hope my words bring some hope and direction to you as we enter this holiday season.  

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