The Hardest Holiday

Christmastime is my favorite season of all.

In my mind, it’s its own season. There’s spring, summer, fall, Christmas… and then…

Winter. (Blast that old man.)

The most wonderful time of the year begins right on the heels of pumpkin spice everything… and carries us right through snow gusts and grinches to the first glimpse of red, velvety Valentine chocolates.

Growing up, we celebrated Christmas in Connecticut. (And you thought that was only in the movies.)

We drove – quite literally – over the river (Ohio) and through the woods (Pennsylvania) to my grandmother’s house… where we celebrated the Christkindl on the eve of Weihnachten… (Yes, my grandparents hailed from the old country… Winterthur Switzerland.) Then early Christmas morn we piled back in my folks’ Torino and drove through quaint little New England towns to my other grandmother’s house.

One grandmother baked cookies for days, the other lined every inch of her kitchen table with tins of her secret-recipe Christmas fudge.

Who needs sugar plums, when you’ve got Swiss cookies and homemade fudge?

I was a sugar-buzz-blessed little elf.

Christmas in Connecticut meant snowy days, starry nights, crackling fires. There were festive family dinners with cocktails and mocktails (I took my Shirley Temple with extra cherries). There was cookie-baking and merrymaking and the whole family gathered around my grandfather’s piano on Christmas Eve singing Silent Night in German and then again in English too – for us American grandkids. To this little American girl, the holidays were simply dreamy… a happy blizzard of joy and wonder and extra marshmallows. 

Which is probably why I cherish this season so. 

Until I turned 32, nothing could dim the warm glow of the season… in my home or my heart. 

But death did. 

My sweet mom left us on a Tuesday afternoon early one December.

Hers was a sudden, swift exit. And I was wholly unprepared.

The next days and weeks – that Christmas – was the hardest holiday I’ve ever known. The poinsettias lost their color. The carols sounded hollow. I didn’t bake a single cookie.

Someone I loved so deeply and dearly died at Christmastime… and honestly? I’m still not sure my heart has fully recovered. 

If you’ll indulge me for a few paragraphs, I’d like to tell you about this remarkable woman. She had rare grace, a quiet strength, a strong faith, and a mischievous grin that she’d flash every so often, just to keep everyone guessing. We were so different, she and I. She was quieter, gentler, more reflective. But she was also tons of fun. She loved parties and plays and road trips and dancing. In a ballroom occasionally, but most often in the kitchen… and all through the house. She favored folk singers like James Taylor, John Denver, Simon & Garfunkel, and quirky cocktails like a Pink Squirrel or a Harvey Wallbanger.

Here’s the deal though – and she would tell you this herself, emphatically: she wasn’t perfect. She had issues. Insecurity issues. Daddy issues. Irritability issues… which she referred to as “hormonal fluctuations.” (< I’m beginning to understand what she meant by that.)

The thing I liked best about her was how relational she was: she was an includer, an encourager, a helper, a pray-er, and she had good shoulders. I know this because I cried on them often. Every one of this woman’s friends later told me that she was their go-to girl. Because she made everyone feel like they were her best friend.

Including me.

This week it’s 25 years since I said goodbye to my beautiful momma. She got sick on a Sunday morning and died two days later. I remember draping myself across her feet in the ICU, pleading with God. And begging her too: Don’t go. Don’t leave me.

The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away.

(And sometimes it hurts like hell.)

My momma went on ahead to heaven. Good for her… but… I was undone. Distraught. Completely crushed. I had no earthly idea how I was going to keep breathing… let alone “do Christmas.”

Or life, for that matter.

I’m not gonna lie. Some days it was a sapping/ sobbing/ isolating/devastating struggle. I felt like I had a new label: bereft. I would see young women in the mall, shopping with their mommas and their babies. And it warmed my heart. And then broke it into a thousand pieces.

I remember that searing pain all too well.

But even in my pain – I was shocked to discover – there was peace. The pain was deep. But the peace was deeper still.

Because Jesus is…

Immanuel.

God with us.

He was so near in my pain. And He showed me more of Himself there. I drew closer. (Probably because I knew no one else could fill the gaping hole in my heart.) There, I found solace. In the floodwaters of grief I learned… Jesus doesn’t just give peace. He is peace.

You’ve probably heard the saying: No Jesus. No peace. Know Jesus. Know peace. 

It’s true.

(Because He’s Truth, too.)

A prerequisite for encountering Truth is a willingness to resist presumption and abandon disbelief. It requires humility (so rare these days) and hope. A yearning for something better, bigger, more brilliant than anything this world has to offer.

A desire to embrace a divine mystery.

A mystery revealed only to those who are willing to take a leap of faith… and believe Jesus. Believe that He is. And that He was. And that He is to come.

Believe that He is with you, for you, before you and behind you.

Believe that He was born and lived and died on this dusty earth. Died to meet the highest and most holy standard of justice, bearing the brutal burden of all the world’s sin and making the bloody payment it requires.

And then – in the most stunning victory of all – defeating death and exiting the grave on his own two nail-scarred feet.

He is risen!

That’s it. That’s all.

Simply believe.

Isn’t that what this season is all about?

Believe.

It’s a risk. And a reward. It’s a wild, daring, heart-pounding, running leap… into the strong arms of a Father who will never let you down.

Don’t ask me to build a bridge of irrefutable proof for you. I cannot. (Though I would argue that C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller can make a pretty good case.)

By God’s definition:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. ~ Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

Turns out, it’s stronger than any bridge ever built. Safer than any fortress. And it isn’t affected the slightest bit by suspicion, skepticism or outright denial. The brilliant scholar/writer/broadcaster/critic/convert C.S. Lewis once wrote:

“Thirst was made for water. Inquiry for truth.”

Keep inquiring. God will answer. (He promised.)

‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ ~ Jeremiah 33:3 (NASB)

Even if you don’t inquire, eventually you may run into Him. (That’s my prayer, anyway.)

“We can ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The earth is crowded with Him,” Lewis wrote.

God cannot not divulge His grace and glory.

“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘Darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”

I’m living proof of God’s grace. I’ve been drenched in His love… seen glimpses of His glory. I’ve been enfolded in His inexplicable peace. I know the truth about Him.

My momma knew it too.

And now, as I celebrate her in my heart – and miss her madly – I’d like to share with you her “last words” to her friends and family. It’s a letter she wrote just days before she went home to heaven.

Her very last Christmas letter.

I want to tell you about a very special man in my life. I actually met him many years ago during a time of transition. Fred had been traveling every week from Monday through Friday for an entire year. I was at home with the kids week after week, exhausted and very lonely. Finally the time came for us to move to Louisville, and I was delighted. But not long after the move I realized that there was still something missing from my life, a void I couldn’t seem to fill. Then a dear friend introduced me to this man, unlike anyone I’d ever met. If I told you his name, you would recognize it immediately and I knew it too, but had never met him until then.

From that day on, I seemed to run into him everywhere. A lot of people were talking about him. Some seemed to be as much in awe of him as I was, while others seemed to hold a burning anger and hatred for him that I couldn’t understand. As time went on, I realized that I had fallen deeply and irreversibly in love with him. It wasn’t the same kind of love I had for my husband or family, and I can’t really explain it except to say I don’t know how I ever lived without him.

He has been there for me through joys and trails, heartache and laughter. He was my rock of stability during our move to Atlanta away from family and friends. He has brought me strength and healing this year after the loss of dear loved ones. He gives me indescribable peace, lifts me up when I’m down and turns torrents of crises into streams of calm waters. When I face uncertainty I ask myself, “What would he do?” And best of all, I know he will never leave me no matter what I say or do to disappoint him because his love for me is so strong. 

I continue to get to know him better through conversations and the beautiful letters he has written – they are powerful yet tender and they give me strength to face anything this life can throw at me. He is perfect in every way and, more than anything, I want you to know him and love him as I do.

In case you haven’t already figured it out, the “other man” in my life is Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and He loves you too. The best Christmas gift you can ever receive is to get to know Him in a personal way (Isaiah 55:6). It’s very simple, just acknowledge your need for Him (Isaiah 43:11, 25) and ask Him to come into your life. Are you tired of the struggle (Philippians 4:13)? Are you just going through the motions day after day (Psalm 127:1)? Do all the “things” of this world seem like empty boxes (1 Corinthians 2:9)? Give Jesus a chance to fill your life. And may God bless you this year in a new and powerful way.

Please let me know if you have received the greatest gift of all – eternal life.

With much love, 

Louise

P.S. Still astounds me… The very last scripture my mom ever wrote was this one:

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. ~ 1 Corinthians 2:9 (NLT)

Hold on through the hardest holidays. Better’s ahead.