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From Blue Christmases to Blue New Years

From Blue Christmases to Blue New Years

Last updated on: January 2, 2024 at 11:38 am by Kathleen Mulhern

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From Blue Christmases to Blue New Years 2024-01-02T11:38:36-07:00 Kathleen Mulhern

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Those who suffer experience a deep relief when the holidays are finally over. At least they can stop pretending jolliness, if they even had that much energy. The blues, however, are not banished by the New Year. For some, they can actually intensify as the sense of a “new start” with all its promises seems to elude them. What is a new start when you are missing that one? when you are facing a terminal diagnosis? when you are still unemployed? when you are in the depths of a broken relationship?

Are you reading to find the “key to enduring suffering”? There is no such key. There is only companionship and the steadfast love of the Lord, who knows all about your suffering and entered our world to share it. To share it and more–to transform it. To retrieve the brokenness and loss and sorrow and reshape it all into new life and light and hope.

In “Crying He Makes” we consider the reality of that stable and those chilly nights. “No crying he makes”? I don’t think so. On the contrary, our Lord started crying with cold, with hunger, with fear–just like most babies would–and continued for a lifetime. Tears of loss, of sadness, of relational brokenness, of weariness, of grief, and finally, tears of submission and obedience. Those tears of submission watered a lifetime of seeking the Father and resulted in the fruit of resurrection. May your tears mingle with his and bear similar fruit.

Image by Bonnie Kolarik, courtesy of Pixabay

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