Holidays are more special due to the people in our lives. We gather with others for birthdays, graduation and wedding celebrations, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other festive days. Our memories of and fondness for these occasions are connected to our family and friends. For instance, imagine what it will be prefer to worship on Christmas Eve in an empty church. We could still worship and provides thanks for what God has done, however it wouldn’t be the identical without the fellowship of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
During holidays, grief is usually more evident. The one that died isn’t any longer present within the celebration, which casts a shadow over the day. Our loss needn’t be recent either for this shadow to be present, as we are able to have a good time a vacation a yr or ten years after death and still feel sorrow. No holiday is ever the identical after the death of a best friend, mother, brother, spouse, child, or other loved one.
Just because they should not present, though, doesn’t mean they’re forgotten. We can select to recollect our family members on lately, resembling making a favourite dish they all the time cooked, using inherited dishware, or visiting the grave to depart flowers. As we do, we are able to grasp onto the promise that a grand celebration is coming – Scripture speaks of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and the banquet in Christ’s coming kingdom (Matthew 26:29; Revelation 19:9). No shadow will loom over those festive gatherings.
As the Bible says, “On this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of wealthy food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the perfect of meats and the best of wines. On this mountain, he’ll destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he’ll swallow up death without end. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he’ll remove his people’s disgrace from all of the earth. The Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 25:6-8, NIV).
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/tommaso79
