Surviving the holidays when you’re burdened with grief or depression

Last Updated on December 17, 2022 by Michelle

The past two Christmas seasons have been the hardest I’ve lived through. Yet they’ve been the ones most saturated with hope, peace, and joy. Probably not the hope, peace, and joy we all think of first when we hear those nouns that, if a word could be a commercial, would be full of perfect smiles and laughter.

I’m thinking of those nouns–hope, peace, and joy–in the deep-seated, faith-filled way… the way that calm joy can settle down into your fiber but make no sense in your thoughts… the way that soothing peace can level out your racing heart and slowly end your tears but make no sense with what your eyes, or bank account, or aching heart tells you.

When you have nothing to give

Two Christmases ago was the only Christmas I have lived through that I had no pressents under the tree. And had no tree until hours before Christmas morning when I yanked a broken, pathetic artificial one from the recesses of the barn attic. One I had rescued from the dump years prior, thinking I would set it up on an outside back porch.

Two Christmases ago was the first Christmas I had lived through without a mom, and the loss was fresh and deep.

Two Christmases ago was my dad’s first Christmas in 55 years that he had lived through without his Queenie, as he tongue-in-cheek called my mom since long before I was born.

But we were together. We sang Silent Night elbow to elbow at our church’s candlelight service on Christmas Eve, and prayed that indeed our tears over loosing mom so suddenly to cancer would soon be silent. Then, back home on the couch in his slippers, Dad looked at me with shocked sadness in his handsome brown eyes when he realized, “I don’t have any presents for anyone.” Of course none of us had any gifts for anyone. We had just lived through the most difficult 6 weeks we’d ever navigated.

Dad’s grief over being empty-handed was something I decided I could surely rectify. I rummaged through closets desperate for something, anything, he could give to his 4 granddaughters. I dug out 4 lip glosses and 4 gift bags from odd corners, and my Dad played Santa with great pleasure. When he presented each gift to each granddaughter on Christmas morning, you would have thought he had wrapped up gold jewelry or green-monster-seating tickets to Fenway. Having something to give brought him sincere joy. Watching him slowly place his meager gifts under the crooked tiny (okay I’ll just admit it… ugly) tree and face me with a nod and sly smile brought out my dimples and my tears simultaneously.

Along with Dad’s humble offerings, a sweet neighbor had dropped off small, wrapped pairs of cozy socks for each of us. So with moist lips and warm toes, we spent the afternoon creating a gingerbread farm the likes of which will never be repeated.

 

  

The sun began to lower in her course across the Christmas sky. And I found myself wishing the morning that I had dreaded–the morning that I thought would be depleted of any reason to smile–could linger because, to my shock, it was filled with deep-seated hope and peace.

Dad turned to me and said, with a little shock but no hesitation, “It was my most joyful Christmas I ever had.” Dad felt it too. That calm joy can settle down into your fiber but make no sense in your thoughts. A deep-seated joy that is independent of circumstances.

When you feel so alone

Then the next Christmas was the first one I lived through without my Daddy. But that loss had settled in for almost a year by the time Christmas arrived. Dad went to be with his Queenie only days after his most joyful Christmas ever–our gingerbread Christmas–one month after Mom died, and, much more importantly he would want me to explain, he went to be with his gracious God who had saved a wretch like himself and been oh-so-good to him.

Just weeks before, on the oncology floor of the hospital near my childhood home, I sat holding mom’s thin hands and massaging her legs that no longer agreed to hold her weight. Only weeks later, I was shivering in a fluorescent-lit, sterile ER room, after a long ambulance ride, in a New Year’s Eve blizzard. The long dark drive that night from my New England farmhouse, which had become Dad’s home too, ended with me standing over Dad’s tired, limp body. I kissed his cool forehead and said goodbye to the man who still had stories he never told me and songs he never sang me. He was already with his Savior, and I was left standing there in a cold hospital in a pool of pain and loneliness.

When you feel helpless

As I tried to define my days after two sudden losses, I had reason to rejoice when my daughter saw an end in sight to years’ worth of almost-unbearable chronic pain. Just a few months after sitting with Mom as she fought cancer with every breath, I was sitting in a hospital room with Jordyn after her successful spinal fusion. We worked through recovery and physical therapy and were just starting to glimpse a true reason for hope, which was the point when I wrote this article. But then the lowest point of my life crept in.

Just as snow was melting and spring buds were filling the horizon with faint colors, Jordyn started screaming with pain that doctors seemed unable to define.

Then they put a name to her agony–Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, from surgical nerve damage–and she and I both entered a long, dark night that stretched from spring into summer.

I didn’t notice that maple sap supplies needed to be cleaned, garden seedlings tended to, and rows of vegetables planted.

Jordyn was experiencing pain that words can’t define.

I was experiencing the hopelessness of a mother who can call experts around the globe, yet have no way to offer her daughter any relief. I make notes, read medical journals, insisted on personally speaking with head surgeons, and had pharmacists on speed dial, all while living in the ICU with no sleep, no showers, and little food, yet I could do nothing.

When you don’t know if night will end

It was a long, dreadful, deeply dark night that stretched across two seasons and ended with a 10-day clinical trial 400 miles from home. The trial offered Jordyn some relief and the ability to return to a life outside of an ICU. Her life will never be pain-free, and college, which she had worked toward so eagerly for so long, is now a severe struggle. If you’d like to know more about Jordyn’s battle with an uncommon neurological syndrome, you can read a little more on her Go Fund Me page.

When life is painfully raw

That Christmas… last Christmas… I was a different person. I welcomed the Advent Season as a woman who had seen how brutally, painfully raw life can be and who also had seen and felt the raw sovereignty and love of God co-existing with the dark pain.

That was the point that I sat down and wrote the little Advent ebook that is available in my Subscriber Library (download my 7-pg pantry checklist there as well): Hope, Peace, and Joy, Even in the Midst of Tears.

This Christmas? I was overjoyed to welcome this Advent Season.

The first day of Advent, I attended an elaborate, gorgeous Christmas Gala. The vaulted-ceiling sanctuary was filled with the sounds of the orchestra and the melodious voices of 5 college choirs.

The next night I had the joy of decorating our own simple, tired church with my teen daughters. We put up a diminutive tree and simple wreaths that we accented with pinecones, red berries, and burlap for ribbon. The church bells tolled 7, then 8, and all the while our humble efforts were serenaded by Christmas iTunes, stories, and giggles.

Both evenings were a perfect way to usher in the Advent season, one reminding me of God’s majesty and the other of the humbleness of the first Christmas and the importance of quiet moments, free of clutter, with the ones who are imprinted on my heart.

I truly wish glimpses of both for you this Christmas season–glimpses of the indescribable majesty of a God who goes to unimaginable extremes to build a personal relationship with you. And glimpses of a God who wants to be in the small, simple moments that define your day and your life.

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Stop over on my winter-themed pinterest board for lots more winter-themed reading.

 

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Take a second to stop over in my Subscriber Library and download the advent ebook.

Not a subscriber? It’s easy peasy to access not only my little book Hope, Peace, and Joy, Even in the Midst of Tears, but all my ebooks and resources, by signing up right here (and snag my 7-pg Pantry Checklist too). I truly hope it is a blessing to you this holiday season.

When you have nothing to give…

when you feel all alone…

when you feel helpless…

when you don’t know if night will end…

and when life is simply and totally painfully RAW…

Please, friend, know that you are not alone. Know that you are loved with an undefinable, indescribable love. I can’t tell you the “why” for your pain. Life is so painful and hard. It always will be, on this side of heaven. But it offers deep, simple joys as well.

I can assure you that I’ve been at the bottom of that black, dark, bitterly lonely hole of helplessness and sheer “alone.” And even there, there was a glimmer of hope, peace, and joy.

This post is the last in my 4-part Grief Series. I wrote about the stages of grief, resources that comforted me in my grief, and questions I wished I had asked.

 

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Other holiday-themed articles:

Reflections on why nativity scenes should include muddy cows,

Christmas “riches” to a homesteader,

How to make a gingerbread farm, and

How we decorate our old farmhouse with all-natural choices.

 

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For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. 2 Chronicles 16:9

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. Psalm 34:18