One of my most fond Christmas memories isn’t with extravagant gifts, or where everything looked like a Hallmark movie. Christmas in our home growing up was very simple. My mom was a single mom of five kids, and money was always tight.

My father did not contribute to the financial side of things because his addiction really had taken over his life. So Christmas wasn’t about making a list and expecting the best gifts. It was a simple time, and because we did not know anything different, that was okay for us.

I remember one Christmas year my mom sat us down and shared that there was not going to be any gifts that year. Funds were not available to buy them. I remember the disappointment as a child. At a young age, I already knew so much loss, and had endured so much. I can remember then, questioning God because I could not understand why this was our story? I also understood the heartache of my mom not being able to give to her kids, and I did not want her to feel the guilt of that. My siblings and I put on a brave face for her.

The holiday season can be an array of emotions, different for each of us. I am of the mindset that this is the time of year to be hypersensitive to the people around you. With that said, I think we can be a hope for those around us, even if we ourselves are in a Christmas funk. How do we do that? How do we push through the hard times, to find hope? When I think of this question, I remember Nan’s (a retreat attendee turned leader/speaker this year) message she shared at our fall Beautifully Flawed retreat. She shared the verse below, along with how she interpreted it:

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you.’’
Joel 2:25-26

Nan said, “That is a promise that I am going to hold onto every day of my life, ‘I will restore to you the years that the swarming locusts have taken’. It really feels sometimes that the swarming locust has come and taken years. But God…honestly, even now, He is going to restore all things. For me that’s everything! He gives to them in abundance, He doesn’t withhold a single thing from them! When I am walking around sometimes, and all I can see is what’s been lost, and I feel like on a day where I am really missing my dad, and I don’t see how this side of heaven anything is going to come close to having my dad back, it is such a sweet reminder that we have a God who is a God of restoration. One day in heaven all things will be restored, but He will also restore our crops on this side of heaven.”