What is it about this season that has us gazing at blurry Christmas lights as we fight back tears? Or digging through our purse for a tissue as we let them flow?
There are many reasons for the feelings that fall from our eyes this time of year. Many of them joyful. My granddaughter Amanda called to tell me, with great excitement in her voice, that she’s engaged! I’m truly happy for her, and at peace that her match with her fiancé Taylor is a God-ordained one, yet I cried off and on for about 24 hours. I can’t explain it; I just needed to cry. For the precious little girl she once was. For the beautiful, Godly woman she’s become. For the future she’s been given. For love.
To stem the tide of tears, my husband took me over to the Broadmoor Hotel, a very nice resort near us, to walk around the lake and see their Christmas decorations. That helped for a while, but we also browsed a specialty kitchen shop there and I happened to pick up a jar labeled: Southern Pecan Pie in a Jar. Jim took one look at me and knew the tears were going to flow yet again. “You can’t put Southern pecan pie in a jar!” I exclaimed, as a flood of memories of my mom’s pecan pie, served around her dining room table in Tennessee, washed over me—along with the realization that while I have her recipe, I’ll never taste her pecan pie again.
In fact, memories of loved ones who have gone before us stimulate many of the Christmas tears we shed. Last Christmas season I offered to take a dear, recently widowed woman in our church to a “remembrance service” the church held. During the service I saw her dabbing her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief and silently but foolishly gave myself a mental pat on the back for making the effort to bring her to the service. Yet afterwards, when I asked her what she thought of the experience, she said, “I think it made it worse.” So much for trying to comfort her. Sometimes we just have to cry, and for a time at least, little else helps.
Yet could it also be that our senses are more alive this time of year? Everywhere we look the world is aglow. Bright lights adorn church sanctuaries and gas stations alike. People are kinder. Faces of loved ones are dearer. Life is sweeter. It’s all just enough to make a grown woman cry. And the music! We can’t forget the music. Last Sunday our worship pastor invited a cellist to play with our praise band. The melodies of familiar carols never seemed so rich and uplifting, nor the words so meaningful. There I was, digging in my purse for that last tissue I knew was there some place.
“There is a sacredness in tears,” writes Washington Irving. “They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”
It’s the unspeakable love that has my Christmas tears flowing this year. Love for family. Love for friends. And the love that came down on Christmas. The love we read of in John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Unspeakable love indeed.
If you’re also feeling weepy this Christmas, let’s just watch Hallmark movies until we can’t cry another tear. Let the feelings flow into a sea of unspeakable love. Then our hearts and minds will be cleansed and ready for the New Year. Tissue, anyone?
Best yet!! Merry Christmas, sweet Friend!!
Same to you, Jimmie!
What a fitting blog for me, Nancy. I’ve just been shedding some Christmas tears of my own. It’s good to know that others have the same difficulty at this time of the year, and it’s good to know that maybe it’s all right to shed some tears over memories of Christmases that can never happen again . I understand Christmas tears maybe too well, so I feel such sympathy for anyone else who experiences them. Merry Christmas to you and your family, Nancy. And thank you once again for hitting my emotions right on the mark with your blog.
Thanks for sharing your heart, Deborah. Hope you have a very Merry Christmas even it if is a bit weepy!
Ah, Nancy. You did it again–brought back some of my memories as well as some tears. The memories of by-gone Christmases are now dancing through my head and the tears are mingling with smiles. Thank you, Nancy.
Thanks, Betty. Enjoy THIS Christmas, too. God bless.
Nancy, I realize now why I cry every Christmas. It is so overwhelming remembering all the childhood memories; missing our parents and in your situation somewhat missing home. I am at home but when your family is a little large – my three brothers and all their children and grandchildren – my son and grandchildren. Everyone is so busy and need to go here and there when we do all get together I just find myself crying. The boys don’t cry (a man thing I suppose) but I just boohoo. Thanks Nancy for all your blogs, they are so heartfelt and full of life.
So good to hear from you Lorinda. Thanks for sharing your thoughts…and your heart. Merry Christmas!
Well, there are tears in my eyes as I type this! SO true Nancy. Had friends over for lunch yesterday and we were all very weepy at different times. Tis the season to cry and rejoice with one another eh??
Yes! Maybe it’s God’s way of getting us ready for the year to come. Merry Christmas!
Just beautifully said! Merry Christmas… tissues and all.
Same to you, Charlie!
Oh, Nancy, now you have me sniffling! The comment about having your mother’s recipe but you’ll never taste it as she made it, got me started. Yesterday I was with my mother at a the hospitality room at her asst. living, listening to the wonderful Christmas songs sung by a 3rd grade class.
She was beside me, and I held her cup of spice tea and broke her cookie into bite-sized pieces. She smiled when I wiped tea from her chin, and twice she made a little humming sound with the children’s songs. I fought back tears.
She was right there, beside me, but she wasn’t there. The dementia had taken her away, and I missed her.
But we do have memories, Nancy. And memories are gifts.
Christmas joys and special memory gifts to you.
Such precious and heartbreaking time with your mom, Marylin. Thanks so much for sharing.
Yip … my eyes are dripping, too! I always cry at funerals, too … often not so much for the person being celebrated, but for the dear departed I miss go much. I believe tears may well be one of God’s most precious benedictions, and proof positive of the depths of the human heart. Thanks Nancy!!
Agreed, Jan. Lots of opportunities to let the feelings flow! I guess we should just go with them from here on out!
perfectly poised between joy and its counterpart, sadness…how would we know one without the other…love love love
Praying for blessings amidst the tears for you this year.
We should never apologize for tears, yet we sometimes do. It is an expression of our deep heart felt feelings for life and the things that matter most. Thanks to our Lord for giving us the gift of tears to add another layer of emotion to our lives. I’m going to feel “okay” about crying this Christmas, it just means we still have a heart.
I agree., Kathy! Let ’em flow, let ’em flow, let ’em flow!