Christmas is hard, or has become hard since the death of my beloved son Sebastian-David and my girls.  Since their death I have struggled to find the motivation, and the excitement to celebrate Christmas.  Because it is very much a family time.  You look around the table and you know there are 4 small faces missing at the dinner table:

Micheline, Elouise, David, and Sebastian-David

I ask you to spare a thought to all the parents who have angels in heaven and say a silent prayer for them so that they may go into the festive seasons with a joyful heart rather than a BIG grieving heart.  How do you remember your angel babies at Christmas time?  We hang angels into our trees for the 4 children that should have been here, but are not.

I buy presents for an orphanage and I give it to children there. After my son died, I made a promise that I would buy presents every year for the local orphanage and put smiles on the faces of children there.  It brings me joy to see their happy faces in eager anticipation. But still somewhere in my heart, there is an open wound and it is often raw when surrounded by family because my children are not here, my brother’s child is not here.

How do you get past that big gulp in your throat that is threatening tears at the Christmas dinner table? Or when we are all sitting around the tree?  How do you get past that feeling of shame, and guilt?  How do you get past that feeling of deep sadness in your heart?  And enjoy Christmas for what it is while accepting that your children will never be able to experience Christmas with you?

I remember my first Christmas without my son in 2014, it was awful.  I made sure I stayed busy.  I made sure I would work on Christmas eve, and the day after Christmas because I couldn’t cope with all the excited chatter.  It was a very sad Christmas.  With big silent tear drops falling down on my plate full of food.  I just wanted to drown, and disappear.  I wanted to run far away from all the Christmas festive.  I was in no mood to celebrate anything.

Over the last two years I have learned to view Christmas differently. It is a time to celebrate Jesus’s birth.  It is a time to share the gospel around the table and a time to be thankful that we have a Saviour.  Someone who has come to earth to save us from our sinful nature.  Someone who loves and forgives us, is compassionate, and feels our every sad emotion.  My Christmas challenge this year is to share the gospel around the table amongst my family members who do not believe in Christ and pray that they to may one day be saved by the grace of God.  For if it wasn’t by God’s grace I would never have been saved.   Let alone be here today.  I would have committed suicide shortly after my son’s death.  But God carried me through the roughest storm.

Just remember our Saviour is with us, and we are not alone in the struggles of daily life.  God is with us.  All we have to do is, open our heart and let Him come and make His home within us.  Do not be discouraged for God is with us wherever we go.

Every day we should be celebrating Jesus’s birth.  Not just once year.  Every day we should be thankful that God gave us life.  And I am grateful. Grateful for my friends and family, and I am learning though its a slow learning curve, I am learning to accept that even if my children are not here, I can take comfort that they are sitting at the throne of God and enjoying the most majestic Christmas ever.

May the Lord bless you all on this new season of hope.  I will pray for all the angel parents out there. Though it is hard, and not a group we want to belong to, we can overcome and stand tall by the grace of God.  Keep warm this Christmas season for my friends in the northern hemisphere, keep cool to my friends in the southern hemisphere 🙂

(PS.. I still can’t imagine what Christmas is like in the summer season… something I would like to experience one day!!  Any insights on this would be most welcome)……