Finding Room for Grief and Gratitude This Holiday Season

Sitting alone in the coffee shop, you take a sip of your latte and stare at your phone. Cheerful Christmas music, punctuated by the clatter of baristas mixing holiday drinks and the murmur of customers chatting about Thanksgiving plans fill the air. But all the holly and jolly doesn’t help you get into the holiday spirit; if anything, it makes you feel like an outsider looking in. You know thankfulness and joy are meant to place an exclamation mark on the truths that Christians live out daily, but your heart just isn’t there this year. In this season of gratitude, you ask yourself, where does grief fit in? 

There Is Room for You 

It’s easy to feel like there isn’t space for sadness or struggle when thankfulness and joy are the expectation. But the truth is, there is room for you right where you are. Scripture makes it clear that the Lord has created our emotions. This means that like everything else God created, emotions are “very good” and, in and of themselves, not inherently sinful. 

Jesus walked the earth as the perfect man, never sinning once, but He did show emotions on many occasions. 

• When Lazarus dies, Jesus weeps (John 11:28–35).
• Before Jesus heals the leper in Mark 1, He was moved with sympathy and compassion. 
• In the garden, the night before His crucifixion, Jesus is pressed under the anguish and grief of what was to come (Matthew 26:36–46).

This means that feeling sorrow and grief are not inherently wrong. There is room for you to feel this way. But Scripture is clear that we are not free toact on our emotions however we want. While emotions are God-given and meant to be expressed, they must be expressed in submission to the whole of Scripture and shaped by godly self-control. 

As believers, we need to be careful not to let our emotions lead us into sin. This means we cannot let grief or sorrow give way to bitterness, anger, actions that harm others or those that draw us away from the Lord. But we can feel deeply and ask questions while seeking to trust the Lord and surrender to His will, even in difficult seasons.

Come to the Table

When your family or friends gather for the upcoming holidays, remind yourself that there is room for them to weep with you and there is room for you to rejoice with them. This doesn’t mean that you need to force a smile onto your face and “fake it ’til you make it,” but it does mean that isolation is not the answer (Rom. 12:15).

Even though you may feel out of place when your spirits don’t soar as high as those around you, don’t close yourself off from community. Try to come to the table—even if just for a little while—with a heart that’s open to sharing your burdens honestly, while also letting others share their joy. Joy is medicine for the heart (Prov. 17:22), and you may be surprised to find your spirits lifted by the presence of others. 

Begin Again: Count Your Blessings

Even if you manage to drag yourself to the table, it can be hard to move your heart to genuine gratitude. You know you should be thankful, but the truth is that when you are in the midst of a difficult season, it tends to consume everything. It clouds your thinking, it gives you “spiritual amnesia,” and it can genuinely feel like you don’t have anything to be thankful for. It’s the hardest time to count your blessings . . . and the time you need it the most. 

Have you ever heard the hymn “Count Your Blessings”? It goes like this:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

In the midst of a hard season, the lyrics may seem calloused or overly sanguine. If the hymn writer was in my situation, you think, he would realize there aren’t many blessings to count. But there is truth here, even if it is hard to wrestle with. Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 

Give thanks in everything. Not just when it is easy to find things to give thanks for.  As a believer, you have been given the biggest blessing of all. Your immeasurable debt has been paid, and instead of bearing the brunt of God’s eternal wrath, you have been given the righteousness of Christ. 

This is huge, but somehow it’s easy to forget. Take some time to rejoice in this fact, and let it reorient your heart: Jesus is enough to be thankful for. If you have been given the gift of salvation, you have blessings innumerable to count.

As you begin to thank the Lord for His gift of grace, ask Him to help you think back to other instances where He has blessed you. Start small—a warm place to sleep, a full belly, clothes to wear—and get bigger from there. Focus on the ways that you have seen the Lord provide in your own life and in the lives of those you love. Before long, you might just have a handful of blessings that you can thank the Lord for.

A Sacrifice of Praise

In some seasons it is much harder to offer praise and thanksgiving to the Lord than in others, but don’t give up trying to do so. Hebrews 13:15 says, “Therefore, through him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.”

During times of grief or hardship, offering up praise to the Lord feels costly, and it is. But can I encourage you to give the Lord this sacrifice of praise? Choose to consciously surrender your life to a sovereign God whose ways you might not understand but who You can trust. Though you may still be hurting, though you may offer gratitude with tears, may you find this holiday season all the ways that the Lord is worth your deepest thanks. Cling to His goodness, for you can find it in even the smallest and hardest of places if you ask Him to help you see it.

Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise…
The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.
You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God. (Psalm 51:15,17)