Christmas is a sensory experience! Seeing the lights, hearing the sounds, smelling all the goodies baking, touching the presents, and tasting the recipes make for a full month of sensory overload. We look forward to the intoxication of the season for months before it happens. The problem arises when the circumstances of life are such that we hear ourselves say, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas.”

The world is still decorated, and the option of sensory overload is still here but life events have buffered our intake. Personal health problems, the death of a loved one, financial crisis, broken relationships, and divorce often cause us to say, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas.”

I remember my first Christmas after my mother died unexpectedly on December 2. The travel, the funeral, and all the emotions blocked many of the sensory delights of that Christmas. Three years later my oldest brother died three days before Christmas. Traveling home from his funeral on Christmas Eve was one of my saddest Christmas memories. There was no “feeling” of Christmas. Three years later I would face the death of another brother only a few days after Christmas. What I remember about those Christmas seasons was not the sensory overload of a decorated world, but the unfailing love of God. Although life circumstances had separated me from the feelings of Christmas, they could never separate me from God’s love and provision.

In Romans 8:31-39 NLT, we find this comfort. “What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. “

Often, I say to myself “Nothing – NO THING” can separate me from the love of God. This revealed truth from the word of God is always a comfort in life’s difficulties.

If Christmas doesn’t “feel right” this year, celebrate your faith in a Savior who was born in Bethlehem as a gift from your Heavenly Father. Celebrate the eternal truth that no crisis in life can ever separate you from God’s love. Celebrate the understanding that Jesus Christ died for us, was raised to life, and is now at the right hand of the Father interceding for us. Celebrate your victory over the fears of today and the worries of tomorrow. The love of God in Christ Jesus is greater than anything we experience in life!