This Christmas full of grief, but I also have hope

To say it hasn’t been a joyous Christmas holiday for me would be an understatement.

I have boxes of Christmas decorations in arm’s length of where I get out of the car every night but the only hint within my home that it’s Christmas this year are the Christmas cards I’ve carefully placed on the mantel as I’ve received each of them.

It’s my first Christmas without my sweet wife in 42 years and it hurts — a lot. I knew I would miss her, I just had no idea how much.

Add to that grief an old dog that has been slowly going downhill all fall until he finally stopped eating early this past week. I didn’t want to, but I finally made the tough decision to have him put down Wednesday so that he wouldn’t suffer further.

The old boy has only been laying underneath my desk at home while I write my column each week for the last 15 years. But not tonight, he got to go run with his mommy beneath that rainbow bridge. I’m jealous he got to see her running first.

Tack onto that more bad news medically learned on the same day to go along with the problems with my back that have forced me to resign my job at the Chamber of Commerce.

I don’t want anyone to read this and think I’ve given up or I might be suicidal. I’m not. I’m just grieving.

The best part of the last week was when a dear friend from out of town stopped in unexpectedly and told me he wanted to meet for breakfast if I had the time. Boy did I ever.

We talked about old times and things new in our lives and we talked about how we were each doing as widowers. He admitted that at one point he wondered if maybe he was becoming clinically depressed and another friend said no, you’re just grieving and it’s OK to do that — even for years after a loss.

So give me a little space this holiday season to grieve my wife and my dog. I think I’ve got a plan to get my health issues going in a better direction and have time to do some of the things I’ve been too busy to do.

I was looking over a devotional I wrote and gave years ago that talked about how it is OK for us to shed tears and even grieve when partaking of communion. Jesus himself was overcome with grief as he encountered Martha and Mary and other Jews mourning the death of Lazarus. But he called him out of the tomb and everyone rejoiced.

Addressing Martha just prior to that in John 11:25 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”

I’m grieving this Christmas, but I haven’t lost hope. My hope is placed in a Savior who became human through the lowliest of situations in a time that was rougher even than what we live in today.

Because of that child, celebrated by shepherds in the field and the heavenly host on high I can grieve and still have the greatest hope imaginable.

I pray this Christmas that each of you recognizes and accepts that same hope. I hope that each of you find peace in whatever your situation and enjoy his blessings fully this Christmas.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]