Christmas Joy in Grief on this edition of Truth and Love.

I'm Dale Johnson and you're listening to Truth and Love, a podcast of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors,

where we seek to provide biblical solutions for the problems

that people face.

All of the songs tell us that this is the most wonderful time of the year.

And man, what a special time where, especially for us as Christians, we get to experience

the celebration of the coming of our king, the first

arrival where we see Jesus arriving on the scene as the God man to save his people from

their sins.

It was foretold that that would happen.

Jesus comes and he dies on a cross for the sake of our sin.

And this is a wonderful time of year where we celebrate, rightfully so, the coming of the Lord

Jesus.

And we have great memories of celebrating with family and even looking forward to doing that.

But how do you celebrate a holiday like this during this time of year when it's supposed to be joyous,

but we've had so much suffering and difficulty?

If you think about 2020, what a year it has been.

And as we reflect on it, we shouldn't gloss over the realities of the suffering

and the loss and the death that so many have experienced. The numbers are quite astounding. And when you

see the numbers of how many people have died, the lives of those people have touched and interacted with many of our lives.

And I want to do a couple of things today. I want us to address the issue of grief. I want us to

talk about it in real terms. I want us to come to grips with it from maybe a couple of different

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