Question: Ever sensed that the holiday season can be both a blessing and a curse? 

Segue: My parents divorced when I was just a toddler, and so I grew up with my mom and my stepfather on one side and my dad and stepmother on the other. And when my mom and dad remarried other spouses, they each had a daughter. So, I have two half-sisters, too. They are both a decade younger than I, so I was the big brother to each of them growing up, as I bounced back and forth between my parents. And nothing reminds you that your parents are divorced quite like the holidays. The reasons should be obvious. As the child, you want to see everyone, love everyone, be with your family, etc. but your family is spread out. Distance is not just a matter of miles and proximity; sometimes distance is fraught with emotional risks and tender spots through no fault of one’s own, but because one’s family has been ripped asunder because of divorce.

So, I spent my holidays yo-yoing back and forth between loved ones. I had my mom in one part of the state and my dad in another (when he was not living overseas due to his career ambitions). I had grandparents and step-grandparents. They, too, were spread apart. I had aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews and nieces, etc. scattered hither and yon. I (as the child of divorced parents) had been grafted into a conglomeration. 

I had a largely wonderful extended family from whom I learned an awful lot about life, work, travel, and the way the world works, but holidays were for me (though I did not share it) emotionally tender times. Why? Because when we are emotionally and/or spiritually divided, we may sense the schism like an emotional rip or tear in our souls.

Blessing and Curse: This week is Thanksgiving week for Americans. Though American culture has decided to largely jettison her biblical moorings and actual history, Thanksgiving remains a holiday for most of us wherein we try to link hands with family, eat, catch up with one another, eat again, perhaps watch a football game or go deer hunting, hop back in the car or catch a flight, etc. 

For my family, this will be our first Thanksgiving without my father-in-law who died recently. Cancer took Papa from us way too soon, and we all feel his absence in our guts. He made everything better. Inwardly, I curse cancer for taking a man that I loved in a way I cannot sufficiently express, but I simultaneously bless his name because he made such a godly and kind difference in countless lives. He and the family grafted me in and loved me from day one. We never speak of Papa without laughing and smiling and feeling better because of him. When I think of Papa, I am reminded of a quote from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption: “Some birds are not meant to be caged … Their feathers are just too bright. And the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty after they’re gone.”

Encouragement: The holidays have a uniquely powerful way of reminding us that our spiritual and emotional lives go to our very core as individuals and as members of our families, no matter how together, extended, or shattered. In order to make the best of these times of holiday feasting, we are unwise if we discount or try to suppress the emotional famines we can sometimes feel and battle. We need to be honest enough to admit that we sense both blessings and curses when it comes to the holiday season. In the Christian worldview, we recall one of Paul’s literary salvos of truth from the prison epistle Philippians: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 3:8, ESV). That’s not psychological pep-talk or humanism. On the contrary, that is straight-up truth from a man who gave it all for the truth because he knew viscerally that as fractured and ripped apart and sin-ridden as this world is and our families can be, Paul knew the One who makes us new, who binds us up, who sets us upon the rock, and who says, “Come and welcome. The table is set for you.”