Countless people enjoy leisure and pleasure around the Christmas and New Year period. But the obvious and uncomfortable truth is that there are many others who live with grief, loss and heartache. You don’t need to look very far to find souls battling with huge burdens or families that are broken and bleeding.

A very common feeling among those hurting in the middle of a trial is that their experience is unique. It is to them a private thing, keenly felt, impossible to put into words. Though there will be friends and even strangers who will offer their sympathies, the sufferer often believes that no-one really understands, and they probably don’t.

There is uniqueness about personal situations. There are circumstances that others can’t fully enter into or appreciate.

That envelope of loneliness
What is there to do but to remain in private grief? Talking about it seems pointless and gains nothing, so we are tempted to think. We take the load and sag beneath it.

Hard as it seems to be, sharing with others is good therapy. There will be some who care among friends, relatives and people at a local church. Often a wise counsellor can be a timely contact bringing some new and helpful perspective on the case. Lack of consolation and a ray of hope leads to depression.

There’s more than meets the eye
We can be so caught up with our need that we fail to recognise some great truths. Someone mentions God and we feel He is far away and irrelevant. How could He understand anyway?

This is the wonder that Christmas is all about. The wonder of God becoming man. This is what the birth of Jesus was, nothing less. He came here to be one of us, but without taking part in sin. He lived a life that showed beyond doubt that He was more than just a man. But He certainly was man. He showed tiredness, thirst and hunger. He wept at a graveside. He gave attention to the nobodies around the place and showed great love toward unlovely people. He understood human nature. Human experience equipped Him to be the ultimate sympathiser. (See Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15, and chapter 5, verses 7-9.)

No matter what is you experience, Jesus understands it. Think how He was misunderstood, betrayed, falsely accused, whipped, spat on, crucified, forsaken to loneliness upon a cross. Think how He experienced death itself but then escaped its clutches by His great power.

There right now for you
Jesus is victor over life and death. He is Lord. But the Bible makes it very clear that He is approachable. Constantly He is ready to hear the cry of those who call on Him out of a genuine sense of need. He calls for surrender of our wills, the only way forward for those who are lost. Hear His words:

“Come to Me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest” (Matthew, chapter 11, verses 28-30).