Advent for the Broken-Hearted is free for a limited time as a Kindle book. If you would like the paper back, here is the link: Advent for the Broken Hearted
Most people, I think, love the Christmas season. The air fills with the scent of pine and cinnamon, everywhere one looks twinkling lights and wreaths of red and green festoon eaves and entries, and what fun to sip a cup of rich, hot cocoa while anticipating gift-wrapping, caroling, and trimming the tree. But some seasons are melancholy, not merry. Some seasons carry grief and loss, trauma and tears, even quiet despair. Sometimes these seasons last a long time. Being out of work, managing with a disability, suffering lack of money or even a place to live, food scarcity, coping in a new area or in an otherwise isolated place, as a stranger with no community … During these lonely and sad seasons, the sounds of “Joy to the World” and “Jingle Bells” grates and stings, salt in the wound of sorrow.
This book isn’t for everyone. Usually, I bring an Advent book to my church as a free gift for every family, but not this year. When people are enjoying their Christmas cheer, reading about the dark underbelly of Jesus’s birth story won’t be high on the list of Advent preparation.
But I offer it to you.
This devotional was adapted from a service that Mari wrote in 2023, created to honor the thrum of sorrow and loss that undulates beneath the largely cheerful Christmas songs sung throughout November and December. Mari, Joanne, Natasha, and a few of our friends and family gathered that Christmas season to hold this service and worship in candlelight. In the soft velvety darkness of night, we remembered in song, scripture, and prayer the advent of Emmanuel, God with Us, the One Who truly knows and understands our griefs and pain. Out of this worship service, the many deep conversations we have had with those who joined with us in the following years, and a series of posts on my website (which you can read below) comes this Advent Devotional.
If you are feeling blue this Thanksgiving, and facing Christmas seems almost more than you can bear, you are not alone. We hope you will join with us as we enter into the quiet darkness with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.
May God hold us close
