I am one of the walking wounded. On most days, you can’t see my scars. During the holidays, as families gather, plan and celebrate, my scar begins to show. It begins to deepen in color and intensity, kind of like Harry Potter’s.  On non-holiday days, I can bear my scar and move on. During these holiday times, though, I feel more alone, more broken, more wounded.

It feels like such a lonely road, but I know there are many men, women and children walking it alongside me.  We have lost love, joy, and sometimes hope through our life experiences of divorce, death of spouse or parent, depression, illness or bad circumstance. 

We are everywhere.  We are in the seat next to you at church, in your workplace, neighborhoods, maybe even at your holiday table. I’d imagine I am like the majority, going about my life, trying to forget the pain of my husband’s illness and death, and then…BAM!…the holiday music begins.  The season that boasts togetherness and celebration begins to chip away at the wall I’ve built to protect myself and make it possible to survive. It reminds me of what I’ve had, lost and the deep separation I feel most days 

It is a difficult journey, but as alone as I feel some days, I know there is someone nearby whose loss may be more recent, more acute.  I lift them up in my heart to God’s comfort.

As I’ve said before, it is only God who can actually really hold us when things are this bad.  It is not the comfort or God has a plan for you or God won’t give you anything you can’t handle or my favorite something good will come of this.  It is the promise of eternal life that God makes us…the one without suffering, pain, sorrow and death. 

It is the comfort felt because I know God knows my pain and cries with me and my children.  It is the comfort to know that God didn’t want cancer my husband to die of cancer.  It is the comfort that God has never left my side and continues to carry me as I surrender to my pain, my journey, and try to do God’s work.

So, as you sit at your holiday tables, know that someone near may be the walking wounded. Scarred so badly they may not know how they will make it through this joyous holiday season again.  There’s a Sheryl Crow lyric in the song It’s Only Love. It says,

Sometimes lonely isn’t a only a word

Faces I have known

And if you see me could you free me with a smile

So I can let go?

So, maybe this holiday season, it’s your simple smile and acknowledgment of our wounds with a simple I’m so sorry for your pain, that may set someone free and give hope where there is little.  This somewhat simple gesture may remind someone that God is walking beside them, never abandoning them, never forgetting their pain and loss.
Christine Thiele