a blessing for the first holidays without your person

Dear God, the holidays are coming, and this is the first one in this new reality.
I don’t know how to get through this.

God, show me what to do with the memories, the traditions, the pain and the excruciating beauty of all that was.

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

Blessed are we who come to You o God,
in the midst of grief and loss, fear and longing,
irritability and anger, gratitude and sweet remembrance,
and so much exhaustion.

Blessed are we who say God, i don’t know where home is
or who I am now, exactly.
Couldn’t i just rest for awhile?
I am too tired to feel everything there is to feel.
Grant me solitude enough for solace, and company enough for comfort,
people to be with who know how to slip quietly under the burden of this grief
and shoulder it with me without much to say.

Blessed are we who ask You for permission during this holiday time
to do things the same as always, or completely differently,
to wade through raw emotion, or ride on the surface of it all.
give us wisdom and guidance that transcends the strangeness,
making little plans possible.

Blessed are we who ask for a way during this holiday time
to celebrate some small ritual of remembrance,
that becomes a safe place to put the love and the grief,
the anger and the ache and the ecstasy of the knowledge
that there is no one that can take their place. No one.

Blessed are we who ask You God, to take hold of the fear,
and us with it,
and lead us through.

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy

Breathe. And breathe again. You are loved.

God himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5