The Empty Chair

From the Salvation Army, you're listening to Wonderful Words of Life. We begin and never cease. O come, O come, let us adore. The Savior born is Christ the Lord. Good news, what joy!

Emmanuel is God with us. Hey, welcome back everybody and welcome to you, Mr. Producer Person, Chris Benjamin. I'm excited to be here.

We're glad you're back and in front of a microphone as opposed to behind it. To you, the listener, if you missed last week's episode, we began a special Christmas series of Wonderful Words of Life. It's a series unlike anything we've done before and we really hope it's a blessing to you this Advent season.

Yeah, I'm really excited about this just to have five weeks of basically people just sharing their testimonies and supporting each other. And this week is definitely a powerful one as we begin to discuss the empty chair that many of us experienced during the holidays. Yeah, Christmas is usually upbeat. There's bells and music and happiness and joy and gifts, but inevitably people have lost relatives or go through a trial of some sort that just leave you not feeling happy. Yeah, a couple of our friends in this episode that you'll hear in a minute, you know, they were really vulnerable in sharing some of the painful experiences that they've had and things that actually happened around Christmas. So Christmas is supposed to be this time of celebration, but it's also an anniversary of someone that they lost. And we know there's so many people out there that can relate.

And if you're one of those people, know that you're not alone. As you'll hear from several people in this segment, if you're struggling this Christmas season, please tell us how we can pray for you or how we might be able to help you. Send us an email at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org or call 1-800-229-9965. This Christmas, you're invited to fight for the hungry, the hurting, and the hopeless. To fight for those struggling to keep a roof over their heads, make ends meet, and survive the holidays. To fight for justice, hope, and love all year long. Your sustaining monthly gift of just $25 doubles the Salvation Army's ability to assist our neighbors battling poverty and help them win.

Join the fight for good at salvationarmyusa.org. What is it like when there is sort of the literal or symbolic empty chair around the room? Someone has passed. How do we deal with that? Yeah, that's a hard one. For me, it was my sister. My father died when I was very young, and then I grew up in a home with alcoholism, and it was never really that Christmas tradition, that Christmas family kind of thing, but my sister was my stability. And when I went to training, my first year I came home and was with my sister, and then that second year she wasn't there.

And she actually had committed suicide that year. And so from that moment on, Christmas was never the same. And then I remember my first year as an officer, you're so excited to help all these families and raise all the money. And I can remember on Christmas Eve, I lived on the building and someone knocking on the door, and a man with his children didn't have anything, and me going. And I mean, I was just so excited, you know, and getting toys and food and getting, you know.

And I gave them the food and the kids were just all happy and everything was so great. And then I shut the door and realized I was by myself, and tomorrow was Christmas Day and I was by myself. And I had worked so hard to make Christmas so wonderful for all these people. And yeah, it was probably one of my worst Christmases ever, which is so ironic because I had just worked so hard to make Christmas so wonderful for so many people.

And I realize as I think of my single officer friends, or there are others that go through the same thing. For us, it's almost five years now, my children's father, Keith, who was the love of my life, despite the end of our marriage, passed away suddenly on December 15th. We went to sleep, got a call in the middle of the night, and he was gone.

He was only 44. And so, five years. And so my memories of that are just waking up to my children. They heard me and having to deliver that news by myself. And I spent that whole night by myself, just trying to figure out what was going to go on. And so the next morning, I looked around me and the house was decorated for Christmas. It was December 15th, like we were 10 days out.

And I thought, well, that's it. Christmas is now forever changed. It was very difficult. It was difficult to Christmas shop. I remember going to the mall one day, and you'll probably relate to this because we're very similar.

I remember going to the mall because I hadn't done anything for the kids and I had to shop. And I walked in one door and I walked out the other because everyone was too happy. And my world had just shattered. And I was supposed to be happy. It's Christmas time.

You know, we're supposed to be celebrating the Savior and we're planning a funeral. And I knew that my children's Christmas would always look a little bit different. It's taken me a while to be okay with that. It's taken me a while to not force the Christmas that I imagine and to just be gentle and invite the Christmas that is.

And that has changed over the last five years. I learned that I carried in that first year the grief of my children versus my own. So like it was like a heavy coat. So I was so worried about the children that year. So the next Christmas, it took me that feeling that he talked about started and I didn't know where it came from.

And I thought, oh, what is this? And really what it was was my own grief resurfacing and being re-traumatized by that. And so Christmas looks different for us.

There's no easy way to put it. We have learned to appreciate our family and the time we have. We can laugh about Keith.

He was a hoot. And so we're able to remember him and all the mess that he was. But it's tender.

And I have to be gentle with myself. When my grandfather died, we saw a shift in our family. And so not in a bad way, but you could kind of see that we really saw and this was like, what, four or five years ago? Like we saw that there's people who were moved, like who either like distanced themselves from our family or who just was kind of live their own lives. And there's another part of me where, you know, working for the Salvation Army and knowing the Salvation Army and the mission. And I understand the push in the pool, but I some people are working from a place where it's unhealthy and emotionally draining. And so it's just covering up what they've. Yeah.

It's like all this busyness because it just distracts from what they're feeling regarding Christmas or at this time of the year, this season. We had we. So my brother or my not my brother, my dad is one of four brothers. And we always like my my sister and I always talk about it is like they're all kind of like our dad, like they all play this really important father figure role in our lives. And a few years back, my so my uncle and he is so the second oldest and he lives in California, but we're super, super close, always went there for a vacation. And he came. He'd been dealing with cancer, esophageal cancer. He came and I remember it was the first time I'd seen him. My sister got to go to California a lot more the first time I saw him since things had gotten really bad. And then him and my aunt came and they spent Christmas with us. And and he's super sick.

I mean, like he had he had to drink like his drip drop his medicine. And so, like, I remember walking this like season with him. And and so, like, I'm not going to lie, like now Christmas is hard because he passed away that year following that Christmas. And so for us, it is a little bit difficult in our house because like we don't get like we lost like part of my dad. And that sense and like when all the brothers get together, it's this like it's always starts out with laughter and all their childhood stories.

But like it always comes down to like, OK, like Denny's not here, you know, and and part of us is missing, like part of dad is missing. And for us, like we were so fortunate to get that last Christmas with him and in our home. But like then to celebrate Christmas in our home and like kind of have to deal with like like the memories of like, OK, he was here and that was a season.

And we were really blessed. But now we have to celebrate like in this with this loss. So I think like that I relate with that, like that melancholy that kind of comes along with all the celebration and the excitement in this. Gosh, we're ushering in this like this birth, the birth of Christ.

But at the same time, you know, you can't help but like face some of those like feelings and the sadness that can come with a loss at a time like that. So Christmas for me, I hate the business aspect of Christmas. So if I if I hate anything about Christmas, it's not necessarily anything related to Jesus. It's just the overmarketing for money purposes.

You know, let's let's get as many sales out there. It's just I feel like it just takes away from the message of Christ overall. But kind of like Caleb, I lost both of my grandmas on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So it's like a bittersweet thing, bitter because, you know, you lose somebody. It's just like it's always hard, but sweet because they both knew Jesus and love Jesus so much, you know. So so for me, Christmas is I always like to keep the perspective of Jesus, you know, like I don't like to dilute it with extravagant gifts and like things that don't matter. You know, so for me, it's more of a relational thing.

I want to be with people that I'm close to, people that I find to be my family. It can be it can be rough, but at the same time, keep in perspective. Exactly.

You know, you kind of you stick through it, you know. Christmas is one of the times there's several times, but one of the times when in my thinking anyway, when culture and scripture are at odds, there's there's a tension because culture would tell us that Christmas should be a hallmark movie, right? You know, with the snow comes at just the right time and the person says just the right thing. And it should be a happy time. Well, of course, we all want happiness at Christmas. But what Christ says, what scripture tells us is Christmas represents hope. There's a difference between hope and happiness. And Christmas comes with the promise of hope. There is good news of a savior who's been born. Christ the Lord. So that hope is what you can hang on to, because we all understand that the happiness that we all want. But that's fleeting.

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