When the Happy Holidays Make Your Heart Ache Achier

I don’t know about you, but the last couple of weeks, the things that make my heart sink, the weights on the end of my fishing line of life, feel heavier. Maybe it’s the irony of it all: the merriment around every corner, the neighbor’s twinkling lights, the commercial filled with extended family laughing at who knows what while trying to sell me something I probably don’t need.

I just wanted to pop in to this humble little corner of the internet and say something simple:

The holidays have a way of making heartbreaks feel more heartbreaking.

You’re not alone. That’s normal. You are normal.

This adoption journey...nearly seven years, three countries, and still waiting later...it's getting to me right now. I know I should trust the Lord; I'm fighting to. But the ache is achier in December, and I'm wondering if maybe you feel that too? 

I'm ready to hold this child, who is somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic right now. I am wondering if it's going to really happen, even here, after all this time of hoping. I thought we would have been matched by last Christmas, and here we are a whole year later, and still no match. My heart is weary of this wait. A wait I have no control over.

If you’re in a season of waiting and wish December would wrap that "thing" in your heart up in a neat little bow, just like the gifts under your tree, that desire is okay.

But it may not happen. And ultimately, it will still be okay (I'm telling myself this).

Because God is here. He is in this.

Just as He told the discouraged prophet Habakkuk:

“For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.”-Habakkuk 2:3

Relief.

God has a plan for you. Let's read that together again...

God has a plan for us.

His plan will come to pass when and how He sees fit. That time has already been ordained by Him. We don’t have to strive. We don't have to know His timing. We are being invited, again, to rest in His perfect plan. His perfect timing.

He is doing something here in this pain-staking wait we are both in, even if our eyes can’t see it yet...even if our hearts can't feel it yet. 

So friend, as you sit among the twinkling lights and bottomless mugs of hot cocoa, He is inviting us, in the midst of our aches to

“Be still and know that I am God.”Psalm 46:10

God loves you. He will do what He wills in your life. He isn't withholding from you, even you may feel like He is. So go to Him with your pain this holiday season, your “I can’t make this happen, Lord” and your “Do You remember me, Lord?”

And together, as we remember the manger, we can exhale and preach truth to our aching hearts:

He loves me. He remembered me. He came.

It would be a real joy to Gemma-Elizabeth and I to pray for you in your ache this holiday season. If you'd like that too, please leave a message in the comments below sharing your ache with us. We'd sincerely love to pray over you when the "merriment" of this merry season feels far.