You know, it's so much harder during the holidays when you've lost someone, especially in the recent past,

and they're not there to enjoy the coming together that you used to enjoy.

My family is well acquainted with this, as are many families, and especially if you lose that person right before or during the holiday season,

it just leaves an open wound, and there's a lot of grief associated with it, even as family and friends come together in joyful celebration.

One of the things that I experienced a few years ago that surprised me because it's something that I had not experienced before is feeling a sense of grief and loss for something, someone, that had not come into existence, at least yet.

And from my wife and I, it was very difficult to go through times when we had dreamed and expected to have children with us, only to not have them there.

And the holidays made that, I think, more profound as well. For those who have been single for long periods of time, you watch the 20s go by. It's now your 30s.

For some of you, it might be your 40s or maybe even older. And you expected to have someone

there with you to share in an intimate way, the time that families are supposed to come together

for. And it just hasn't happened.

And it stings, and it hurts.

And there's a sense in which you feel like maybe there's something wrong with you.

Maybe you shouldn't feel this way.

Everyone's rejoicing.

I should be rejoicing.

There's plenty of things to rejoice about. There are. But I also feel a deep sadness.

And scripture says to encourage the faint-hearted. And it's in that spirit that I wanted to read

for you, something that I wrote.

A good friend of my wife and me texted me the other day expressing the difficulty of going through this time.

She texted both of us, actually.

I had posted a stat on Facebook about Gen Z adults from 18 to 29 and how 51% of them are single.

And if you go back 10 years, it's 41%, which is quite a jump.

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