Your Choice: Denial or Truth & Hope for the Holidays?

Recently, I was in a group where we shared our anticipation of the holidays. One friend remarked, “I simply don’t celebrate the holidays anymore.” As she continued talking, it became clear that this was her solution to eliminate consistent disappointment and the ongoing pain of being alone. Self-sufficiency would protect her, she reasoned. Denial was her friend.

I don’t think she is alone in feeling this way. You may feel the same (even though you’ve never voiced it). Sadly, denial is a thinly veiled lie that at some point always disappoints. Why? Because ultimately you are denying the truth. And “truth” always prevails.

Reasoning that if you pretend the holidays no longer exist, you won’t get hurt, isn’t possible. The world around you is a constant reminder that family and friends are gathering, wonderful experiences are being shared by others, and you are missing out.

So, what is the alternative? Maybe optimism…the belief that everything is going to be different this year- wonderful, painless and happy. Regardless of your situation or life season, there is always drama. Optimism is a carefully learned method of denial. Optimistic people always seem happy; but when life really does assault, it cannot support them. I learned that the hard way when unexpected events in my life were so devastating that I hit a brick wall. All the optimism I had practiced for a lifetime failed…

Here is the truth I learned…

In the face of stark despairing reality, I realize we lose “optimism.” Optimism always looks for human possibilities and solutions to solve problems. The proverbial “card up the sleeve” disappears. At this point when denial is removed and realty strikes, hope is born.

What is hope? Hope recognizes the truth about a situation while choosing to focus on the supernatural reality of divine intervention. Not only does God become the focus, but the reality on which we depend. God and His ability to make impossible things possible anchors our hope. He is God beyond the brick wall. That’s hope.

It’s not a trust placed in what can be seen but in what cannot. “But hope that is seen is no hope at all,” Paul writes in Romans.

David expressed it this way, “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.”

Promise after promise is offered in the Bible so that we might have hope; and they are God’s promises of love. Here are more:

“But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope
is in his unfailing love.”
“No one whose hope is in You will ever be put to shame.”

The Master Designer gives us courage to go on because our hope is active, not passive. It is something we can do as we trust and wait, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” And Paul adds, “May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Italicized section excerpted from Linda’s book “Dancing in the Storm: Successfully Embracing Change.”)

So let’s face the holidays not with denial that they might be difficult or optimism that they will suddenly be perfect. Let’s face the holidays with truth. God is God and He wants to share the holidays with us. Let’s anticipate His supernatural intervention and the joy that will come from seeing glimpses of His glorious face through all the everyday moments of the coming weeks…the smile from a sales person at checkout…the joy of carols played in the mall…the warmth of friends you’ve invited to “do lunch”…or the gratitude of a homeless person you fed at the rescue mission. Create new holiday memories securely focused on God in anticipation of His intervention in our everyday life.

Now those are holidays worth anticipating!