An Empty Chair this Christmas

There’s an empty chair at a lot of tables this Christmas.

For some, it’s the first holiday without a spouse, a parent, a child, or a close friend. For others, the chair has been empty for years, but the ache still rears its head every December.

Christmas has a way of bringing both joy and grief into the same room.

And here’s the quiet grace of God in this season:

He does not avoid our grief. He enters it.

The story of Christmas reminds us that God stepped into a broken world, into loss, sorrow, and pain, not to rush us past it, but to meet us in it. Emmanuel means "God with us," even when the chair is empty, and the heart is heavy.

Sometimes Christmas hope doesn’t look like laughter around the table.

Sometimes it looks like God sitting with us in the silence.

And that is grace, too. This Christmas season, I am praying for those who have empty chairs at the table!