Christmas has so many wonderful moments. Unfortunately, strands of loss and grief alter Christmas joy for many people each year. Approaching Christmas is hard when your heart is breaking. Depression in the holidays is a real thing.
Depression is experienced by many people during the holidays. If you 
are one of them, you are not alone. Life is hard. You may have had a terrible loss, a deep disappointment, a health issue, or something else that has pierced your heart this past year. It’s possible the painful life event even happened some years ago. You are not unhealthy for still feeling the sting, but you may need to find some healthy responses to move forward and be a balanced, hopeful person.
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You know what it’s like to wake up in the morning, look out your window, and see heavy fog. Sometimes it’s so thick you can’t see anything. Trees are barely visible. The street is out there somewhere. Probably the first thing going through your mind is, “How am I going to see the road and other vehicles to drive?” Still, the view is captivating. The veil silently lingers over everything. In fact, it changes the landscape perspective. You are left to fill in opaque spaces with memory or imagination. Lines are no longer clear. Outlines barely visible. Boundaries blurry. And everything seems unsure. If only you could unveil the view.
Every morning, I take certain medications. Perhaps you do, as well. Some people take a daily vitamin pill. Many meds are critical to promote health and bring balance to systems that need assistance. If you need a chemical your body is short on, there are options in most cases. Sometimes in the middle of a day, you just need something for a headache. Pills and creams of every kind help you maintain a healthy body. Too bad there isn’t a pill for courage, or a cream for confidence. I wonder. Is it possible to take a daily dose?
Mostly it’s in the small stuff. I’m sure you’ve been in a jam at some point. Caught in bad circumstances. You have that dreaded, instant panic feeling. It could be you lost your wallet or left your purse on a shelf in a store aisle. Perhaps you forgot to pay an important bill. You may have broken something very special or ruined a plant you were nurturing. Your keys to a public building, a safe, and your own home are missing.
Maybe you ran your car into someone’s fence or got pulled over for speeding. Maybe you said something you later regret terribly.
What does it look like to engage a life that matters? To avoid entanglements, skip the irrelevant, and move forward to be a seasoned believer. And what does it look like to apply practical decisions each day that make a difference in this world. You are only given a certain number of days. How can you make them really count and match God’s heart? What does it look like to carry out God’s agenda in your daily living?
I’m sure you have held an infant, completely helpless, very hungry, in your arms. They depend utterly on you to protect and nourish them. Their intense, desperate delight as they grab the bottle you offer, shows their utter focus on themselves and their complete dependency on you for survival. It’s a precious memory to feed an infant.
