If you are someone who is alone this Christmas, I might not understand exactly how you feel. I might not understand what it means to be without a husband or children at Christmas. But I do understand the loss of someone you love. My parents passed away several years ago. The sadness you feel doesn’t have to overwhelm you. It doesn’t have to define your life.
Movies, television, and marketing remind us constantly that Christmas should be a Hallmark time for love and families—a time for sharing presents and home. Warm and cozy feelings are their retail intentions, along with a hot cup of cocoa to soothe and renew your visions of sugar plum sweetness. Over and over again, you are reminded that their reality is authentic. Loneliness is magnified. Loss becomes greater. Despair draws you in, and you feel discarded and forsaken—adrift without hope in a world that has left you behind. The truth is you are not alone. You are not abandoned. Jesus loves you with the purest unconditional love.
Jesus was not born into a world of sugar-plum sweetness. He was born in a lowly manger with little comfort because there was no room for him in the inn. He came alone, without fanfare, to offer himself as your gift of new life. He was born to give his life with no expectation of return. His love never needed to be earned. It was freely given, costing you nothing. Abandoned because of your sin, He experienced loneliness you will never know. And in His brokenness for you, He imparted the ultimate healing gift of His righteousness so that you might experience God's fullness and joy no matter your circumstances or pain. Jesus is the only answer to loneliness. He is the only answer to the pain of loss. He is the only answer for your life.
If you feel alone, you are not abandoned or alone. Your Comforter has come so you can rest in His loving grace. His heart understands your pain. He gave His own Son to take all your sins. He forgives, heals, and restores your brokenness. He took your loneliness and despair to the Cross. He took your illnesses and diseases. He took your loss and your disappointment. He took those feelings that threaten to overwhelm you. He took them all and rendered His life as the perfect offering. There is no more extraordinary gift than His love, which came to heal you and set you free from your prison of pain. Jesus has blessed you with the joy of His salvation.
When you know Jesus as your greatest love and believe His life is yours, loss does not consume you. You know His truth is greater than your feelings. You live His peace, the gift His life has given you. You walk in His love and assurance. You might have experienced loss, but you have Him. And He is sufficient to fill the void. You know He will never leave or forsake you. Your heart is healed by His truth instead of bombarded by feelings of despair and loneliness. You walk by faith, unscathed by loss. His grace continually sustains and strengthens you. The feelings that overwhelm you become less because you know the joy of His presence. He is in you, and you are in Him.
Job did not understand God’s purpose; he only understood his pain and loss. He would have missed his blessings if he had not finally acknowledged his limited understanding and repented.
“Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,” Job proclaimed. “Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:3,56).
How often do we speak of things we don’t understand when the knowledge of God’s truth has the power to heal our strife, struggle, and hurt? God has wonderful things to reveal, but limited understanding can keep us from His revelation.
God’s purpose is for you to know the healing love revealed to you in His Son. When you possess Jesus, you have the greatest gift of all. Turn away from the emotional baggage with which the enemy tries to destroy you, and open your heart to receive God’s Words. May you see Jesus instead of your loss and hear Him instead of the voice that reminds you of your loneliness. Believe Jesus. Believe who you are in Him. Jesus is more than everything you have ever longed for. He is more than wonderful. Sacrifice your feelings. Praise Him for His finished work of grace in your life, and experience His healing.
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