Emmanuel: God With Us In Our Struggle

God With Us In Our Struggle The holidays can be difficult because they bring up so many emotions for all of us. Especially as single parents, it can be hard to celebrate when we are facing painful memories of lost dreams, broken family traditions, and at times, being apart from our kids. Our reality is far different from a Hallmark movie storyline. Celebrating the season can be a struggle because it highlights the pain of parenting alone.  Because we know the reality of loss can peak around the holidays, we want to offer some strategies that might help you embrace the truth that God is with us in grief.  1. Identify and confess your strugle. We need to acknowledge and admit that our grief is real. We need to stop being afraid of it. There is no shame in grief. Yet, sometimes we shrink back from naming and facing it. But grief is a normal part of the human experience. Grief is a sign that our losses and pain matter because we matter. When we love someone and lose them, it’s sad. There is a painful void left behind. When we lose the dream of a typical family, it hurts. 2. Accept struggle as normal. It’s normal to feel grief and to struggle, especially during the holidays. We need to let ourselves feel it. We need to let go of the desire to push it aside and ignore it. If you are a single parent, you know a lot about grief and feeling loss. These feelings can become even stronger during the holiday season when the losses are highlighted. Remember though, you are not alone, and to struggle with grief and sadness is normal.  3. Invite God into your struggle. Don’t be afraid to let your heart be known by God. That is where intimacy and trust are born. Go to Him honestly with all you are feeling. Don’t hide the dark places from Him. Let Him enter your highs, lows, and everything in between. He will meet you there, where you are.  4. Finally, recognize God’s presence with you in struggle. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted. He is acquainted with grief and He will be with you in it. We can find a sense of peace even in sadness and loss because God promises to be with those crushed in spirit.  Single parent, Elizabeth, shares her experience with grief especially around the holidays. Christmas is hard being a solo parent. It’s just not easy. The loss of extended family because of divorce is painful. It just is. Seeing pictures of past celebrations pop up on your phone or just having memories come to mind is like a stab to the heart. Ornaments from past years highlight the changes we’ve experienced. Your kids leaving to go be with their other family hurts and feels like a loss in itself. Reminder after reminder comes up even as you’re getting through Thanksgiving Day and putting up a Christmas tree.  Even as the waves of emotion wash over you, it’s important to remember too that grief and gratitude can coexist. We can be thankful for our children’s connection to their other parent’s family even while we experience sadness at not being with them. And, it’s normal to have FOMO – fear of missing out – when we know traditions are continuing that we are no longer part of anymore. Being disconnected and excluded from special memories and experiences with our kids is hard.  That’s why this topic is so important. Grief around the holidays is real and normal. It’s healthy to acknowledge and accept it. We can also hold on to the truth that God is with us in that grief. He is Emmanuel. Especially during this pandemic, when everything feels heightened, it’s even more necessary to invite God into that reality. We are all under more stress and more easily triggered. We aren’t necessarily in the best place ourselves so we need God to be with us even more.  How do we embrace Emmanuel – God with us – in struggle? Identifying and confessing grief is the first step. We all experience sadness and hurt, but what we do with those...