December does not land the same way for everyone. For some, it brings warmth. For others, it quietly exposes the weight they carry.
It was sometime just after New Year’s many years ago when Kerry decided to call her best friend. It was her birthday, one of those early January dates that blends “Happy Birthday!” and “Happy New Year!” into the same joyful greeting.
And if you know Kerry at all, you know she cannot say either quietly.
She picked up the phone with that full-hearted joy of hers and said:
“Happy Birthday! And Happy New Year!”
Her friend responded with small talk.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing heavy.
Nothing to hint at what she was carrying.
Then she said, “Can I talk to him?”
When I took the phone, everything changed. The strength she had been using to sound normal cracked. And she told me, slowly and painfully, as if saying it aloud made it real again, that her father had taken his own life on Christmas Eve.
In their home.
While the family slept.
She told me she did not want to say it to Kerry.
Not after hearing that kind of joy.
Not during her birthday greeting.
So she carried it alone for a few more moments.
Until she could not.
That call did not give me revelation.
It did not give me something profound to preach.
It gave me something much more human.
Awareness.
Awareness that the holiday season does not land the same way for everyone.
Awareness that grief does not check the calendar before it arrives.
Awareness that some people are enduring what others are celebrating.
Up until then, December had always felt warm and familiar to me.
But grief walked into my world through a phone line that afternoon, and I suddenly understood something I had only known in theory.
Not everyone’s December is filled with joy.
Some walk into the season hopeful.
Some walk into it hurt.
Some gather around full tables.
Some feel the weight of an empty chair.
And over the years, as I have sat with families during their first Christmas after losing someone they love, or after the end of a relationship, or while carrying financial pressure, or feeling loneliness they cannot quite name, the truth has become even clearer.
December does not shine a light on joy for everyone.
Sometimes it shines a light on our wounds.
And if you find yourself on the hard end of this season,
if December has exposed more hurt than happiness,
may you take some comfort in knowing this:
“He is near to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
He draws close not after we have healed,
but as we hurt.
And what His nearness brings is not always joy.
Sometimes it is comfort.
Sometimes it is peace.
Sometimes it is simply enough strength for the next breath.
He meets us where we actually are,
not where the season expects us to be.
Because throughout Scripture, whenever God draws near,
He brings what the moment truly needs.
For some, rest.
For others, comfort.
For others, peace.
For others, the assurance that they are not alone.
God’s nearness does not demand a certain emotional response.
It simply promises, “I am with you.”
This is why the first Christmas matters so deeply.
It did not happen in a perfect world.
It happened in a broken one.
In obscurity.
In poverty.
In a moment where families were grieving and children were not safe.
God did not wait for the world to get better before He came.
He came because it was broken.
And when He arrived, He brought what humanity needed most.
Not noise.
Not pressure.
Not performance.
But presence.
A presence strong enough for the joyful
and gentle enough for the grieving.
A presence that sits with the forgotten
and lifts up the worn-out.
A presence that says,
“You are not alone, even here.”
So if this December feels complicated,
if it feels heavy,
if you are holding joy in one hand and sorrow in the other,
you are not doing it wrong.
You are human.
And you are seen by the God who comes near.Because the heart of this season has never depended on how well we celebrate.
It rests on the God who steps toward us,
who enters both our joy and our pain,
and who brings the comfort, peace, and nearness
that no season and no sorrow can take away.
