Hallmark Lies: The Empty Chair Won’t Shut Up

The moment the calendar turns to November, the world begins its annual performance of relentless cheer. Lights twinkle, carols loop, and every commercial insists this is the most wonderful time of the year.

For anyone who has buried someone they love, the season often feels less like wonder and more like a slow-motion collision.

This episode is not for the people whose holidays still sparkle. It is for the ones who dread the empty chair at the table, who flinch at certain songs, who already know which relative will say the wrong thing and which bathroom door locks properly when the tears come without warning.

Here there is no pressure to “choose joy,” no demand to stuff the pain into a prettier box, no suggestion that strong faith should make the holidays feel magical again.

There is only permission to grieve out loud in the middle of a season that pretends grief doesn’t exist.

We sit together in the tension between the ache that is still very real and the resurrection that is still very sure.

Because the empty chair is loud right now—but it is not eternal.

If the thought of Thanksgiving and Christmas feels overwhelming this year, pull up a seat. You’re not broken, you’re not behind, and you’re not alone.

#grief #holidays #rawfaith #christianpodcast #loss #hardytalks

[00:00] When Holidays Amplify Loss and Grief
[01:54] Navigating Personal Grief Amidst Holiday Expectations
[05:15] Job, David, Jesus: Biblical Examples of Grief
[17:02] Understanding Grief: Brain, Body, and God's Design
[26:19] Practical Strategies for Navigating Holiday Grief
[28:31] The Empty Chair is Loud, But Not Eternal

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Let's be real. The calendar flips to November, and the entire planet loses its mind with the most wonderful time of the year propaganda. Meanwhile, a whole lot of us are just trying to survive the next eight weeks without falling apart in front of people who still have full tables. People who still have all their family. And you know, Hallmark never made a movie where every tradition is like a fresh knife twist or a family photo has a permanent hole in it. I I mean I've never seen a movie where someone will say they'd want you to be happy, and that just magically fixes the fact that the person was gone. We're sold this lie that if your love is real and if your faith is strong, the holidays should still feel magical. They don't tell you that some years the season tastes like ash. It smells like a hospital room, and it sounds like silence where a voice used to be. If if you're already bracing for impact, if you're mentally mapping which bathroom you'll hide in to f if to cry, if you've considered just turning off your phone from November 1st to January 2nd and telling everyone you've moved to Antarctica, this episode's for you. No forced smiles, no spiritual bypass, just raw truth about the ghost at your table and the fact that it's okay to hate the holidays for a minute. The empty chair won't shut up, and we're not going to tell it to either. Let's be real. Let's be real. Now, holidays amplify loss because they're built on memories. A lot of people can't wait for the holidays, and I used to be one of them. I used to get excited when Thanksgiving rolls around, and I'm putting up my Christmas tree early. I'm decorating my house, I'm putting up lights, I got playlists blasting Christmas music. I'm doing the whole deal. But then life happened. One by one, the people who made this season magical started dying this time of the year. Now every early sunset at 5 30 p.m. It's a reminder of who's missing. Who's not here in my life anymore. I'm not depressed. I uh uh I'm content most days, anyways. I still have family I love and I show up to events because that's what you do. But let's be honest, these gatherings feel more like a mental and emotional marathon than a party. I mean, I would trade them all for a loud, sweaty 4th of July cookout where the only thing heavy is the brisket. Some won't get it. Some won't understand what I'm saying, and that's fine. This episode isn't for them. Because I know one day, if if God blesses me, I'll have kids of my own and watch their eyes go cartoon wide on Christmas morning. And when that happens, that joy I used to have this time of year will come roaring back. But until then, I'm going through the motions because love looks like showing up even when it stings. And no matter what, I'm still grateful every single day for breath in my lungs and the years I got with the ones I lost. And look, I'm not here to dump glitter on your pain. Thanksgiving hits and the algorithm feeds your videos of 30 cousins crammed around one table laughing like hyenas. Christmas commercials show dads in perfect flannels, hugging kids who never fight. And you're and you're over here wondering why your turkey tastes like cardboard and the only thing you want to stuff is your face and a pillow so no one sees you cry. Here's what no one on Instagram says out loud. The empty chair has a megaphone from November 1st to January 2nd. Every ornament you pull out of the box is a landmine. Someone's gonna say, Well, at least they're in a better place, and you're gonna pitch your punching them in the throat while smiling, saying, Yeah, you're right. You'll you'll feel guilty for laughing at your mama's burnt rolls because how dare you feel joy when while they're gone. And then you'll feel guilty for not laughing because they would have wanted you to be happy. That that push-pull is exhausting. And the worst part, the worst part, the church sometimes hands you a plastic choose joy spoon and tells you to eat your pain with it. But I need you to know you're you're one, you're not alone, and and most importantly, you're not the first person to sit at a table that suddenly has a hole in it. Three men in Scripture stared at empty chairs louder than any Christmas carol. The first story that comes to mind is it's cliche because every sermon ever has used it as an example of hardship. That doesn't mean we need to skip it. We just we need to unpack it. I'm talking about Job. We know the story. Job is the richest man in the East. He has 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, massive staff, 10 grown children who throw huge parties together. Well, one afternoon, four messengers arrive back to back, each starting with the same line. Each one of them started with, I have a long escape to tell you. First one said, Raiders stole the oxen and killed the servants. The one after that said, fire from sky burned up the sheep and shepherds. Someone took camels and slaughtered everyone. A desert wind hit with house where all ten kids were eating and the roof collapsed. They're all dead. Listen, and let me tell you about it. Second time someone showed up in my house, I'm not I don't there, I'm telling them to leave. Every one of them's bringing bad news. Well, in the space of maybe 20 minutes, Job goes from the wealthiest man alive to a childless pauper. He tears his robe, shaves his head. This is the ancient way of saying, My life is over. He falls to the ground and worships. Then Satan hits him with balls from head to toe, open, festering, sores to itch, burns so badly that he he sits in a city garbage bump dump, scraping himself with a broken piece of pottery just to get relief. Ow. His wife, I remind you, who also just lost ten children in one afternoon, she walks up and says, Do you still hold fast to your to your integrity? Just curse God and die. Job looks at her and answers, You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil? Then covered in ashes and blood, he says the line that still echoes. Not because he feels blessed. He didn't say that because he felt like the most blessed person on the world. No, not at all. And not because he has some answers. He he says it because even when every circumstance screams that God is cruel or absent, Job will not let pain be the final theology. Wow. Then we have King David. David has just been exposed for adultery and murder. The prophet Nathan told him the child conceived through all that adultery. It was conceived in sin and will die. Well, the baby is born, it gets sick immediately and hangs on for seven days. For one solid week, the king of Israel refuses to act like a king. He strips off his royal robes, put on, puts on sackcloth, sleeps on the bare ground, refusing food, and begs God face down in the dirt. Servants try to pull him up, but he won't move. He's pleading, bargaining, weeping, fasting, everything a desperate father can do. Then day seven arrives. The baby takes one last breath and dies. And all the servants, they huddle outside the door whispering, terrified to tell David because they're sure they're sure he's gonna harm himself. And finally, one of them gets the courage to walk in, and David sees the look on their face and asks, Is the child dead? and they say, Yes. And this is the most shocking thing because David does what's unimaginable. He stands up, washes the tears and dirt off his face, anoints himself with oil, changes into some fresh clothes, and he walks into the tabernacle, the church, and worships God. Then he goes home and asks for dinner. The servants are completely confused. They were like, You were a train wreck when the child was alive, and now you're eating and worshiping? David gives them one of the rawest answers in scripture. He says, While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept for I said, Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live? Who knows? But now the child is dead. Why why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. Notice here, you have to notice. David never said that his pain is gone. He never pretends he understands why. He simply refuses to let death be the final word about God's goodness. Worship becomes his act of defiance. That's powerful. Then we then we move forward in time. And we get this powerful story, and I'm going to say, Jesus wept. If you gather anything from this episode, it should be that Jesus wept. He didn't shed a single tear. He cried bitterly in anguish, pain, and screaming into the void. Put yourself in Bethany. Two miles outside of Jerusalem. It's hot, dusty, and the whole village smells like a morgue because Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. In Jewish thought, the soul lingered around the body for three days. Day four meant even the soul had given up and left. Game over. So we're on day four. The tomb is a is a cave cut into a hillside. They've rolled a two-ton stone across the opening. Inside Lazarus' body is wrapped head to toe in linen strips, soaked in 75 pounds of spices. That's the embalming for rich people, basically. The smell of decay is already leaking out. Well, Jesus finally shows up. He's deliberately late, as we if if you read earlier. And word has reached him, word reached him days earlier that Lazarus was dying, and he stayed where he was for two extra days. He stayed. He tells the disciples, let's go back to Judea. They think he's suicidal because the religious leaders just tried to stone him there. Thomas literally says, Fine, let's go die with him. They think he's crazy. Well, Martha hears Jesus is close and sprints out to meet him while Mary stays in the house paralyzed by grief. Martha's first words are raw. She says, Lord, if you've only been here, my my brother would have not have died. It's it what she says is half fate, half accusation. And Jesus tells her, tells her, your brother will rise again. And she thinks that he's talking about the final resurrection someday. She has no idea he means in the next 10 minutes. Then Mary comes out. She falls at Jesus' feet and repeats the exact same line. But this time she's sobbing so hard the words come out broken. The crowd that followed her, followed her is wailing. The noise is deafening. Jesus asks, Where have you laid him? They say, Come and see. And then the shortest verse in the Bible drops like a bomb. In the entire Bible, this is the shortest verse. It says, Jesus wept. Not a single tear. The original language shows violent emotion. He he shredded. He snorted with anger. He he got churned. Grown mere nearby say, Wow, see how much he loved him. Others sneer. If he could open blind eyes, why can't he uh keep this man from dying? Jesus walks to the tomb still crying. He tells them to roll the stone away. Martha, who's even practical even in a crisis, says, Lord, by the time by this time there's a bad odor. He's been dead for four days. Translation of that, it's it's too late and it's going to stink. Jesus looks at her and says, Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? Well, they rolled a stone away. Jesus prays out loud so everyone hears and shouts, Lazarus, come out. A dead man wrapped like a mummy hops to the door, face cloth still covering his eyes. Jesus says, Unbind him and let him go. Here's why this wrecks me every Christmas. Jesus already knew the ending before he left Galilee. He told the disciples plainly, this sickness will not end in death for Lazarus. It is for God's glory. He was holding resurrection power in his hand the entire time, and he still wept like a loss was permanent. If the only person who has ever been 100% certain of heaven can sob over a grave, then your tears this season are not a failure of faith. They're proof you're human and that you're you loved. These three men, you see, they didn't get quick fixes. They got silent, stench, ashes, and graves. But every one of them had hope and resurrection from a God who could handle their unfiltered grief and still be worthy of trust on the other side. You see, Job teaches us that grief and worship can sit in the same ashes. David reminds us that healing isn't forgetting, it's trusting God when you can't stand change. Jesus shows us that God doesn't wait for resurrection for him to start weeping with us. This is not a Christmas card. That's oxygen when the empty chair is screaming louder than the carols. And here's the part that most preachers skip. But your body already knows grief isn't just spiritual, it's neurological, hormonal, cellular. And the holidays turn the volume up to 11. Science and theology go hand in hand. Anniversary reactions like Christmas or their one-year anniversary, there aren't just feelings. They're neurology. Every year, when the calendar hits the month they died, or the holiday season, if that's where they died near, your brain fires up the exact same neural pathways it lit up the day you got that phone call. FMRI studies on widows and Bereed's parents show the pain centers in the brain activate at the same intensity 5, 10, and even 20 years later when the anniversary rolls around. Your heart races, your throat closes, your stomach drops, not because you chose to dwell on it, because your brain thinks the threat is happening again right now. That wave that hit you out of nowhere in the middle of Walmart, that's your brain doing its job like it was designed. Furthermore, your body, your body literally keeps the score. Trauma from from sudden or painful loss rewires the stress response system. Cortisol and adrenaline stay elevated for months, sometimes years. Inflammation markers go up, immune function goes down, and the risk of heart attack literally doubles in the first 30 days after losing a spouse and stays higher for at least a year. The body is walking around in low-grade fight or flight mode, even when you're sitting on the couch watching football. Holiday cues are trigger stacked on steroid. One random Tuesday in July, just you might be fine. But November through January is a perfect storm. Shorter days, cold weather, specific smells, whether it's pine, cinnamon, fireplace, specific sounds, jingle bells, certain curls, foods, lighting. Every single one of these is a conditioned cue tied to a memory of them being alive. Your brain stacks the triggers and the grief response multiplies instead of adding. The dopamine crash is a real redrawal. Your brain used to associate all of this, the Christmas lights, the decorations, plus that person. It associated all that with a massive oxytocin and dopamine hit. Now, lights plus decorations and that person being missing. That absence is the expected reward, but it feels like a withdrawal. Because it's chemically identical, but it's missing something. That's why the season can feel flat, gray, and pointless, even when you're surrounded by people who love you and presence under the tree. And studies show that emotional suppression and trying to choose and force joy, it shows us that when you shove grief down to keep it together for the family photo, your sympathetic nervous system stays revved and cortisol actually climbs higher than if you would have just let yourself cry for five minutes in the bathroom. In other words, the choose joy as a performance can make the body sicker. Naming the pain out loud, saying things like this hurts without them, drops cortisol faster than faking the smile. People handle grief differently because there's different types of grief. About 10 to 15% of people get stuck in acute grief long term, clinically called prolonged grief disorder. The holidays are the number one trigger that keeps the cycle spinning. If you're in year five and still feel like every December is year one, you're not crazy and you're not a failure. Your brain is locked in a loop that external cues keep restarting. The punchline from every journal article and brain scam is the same. This level of pain is not a sign that you're doing grief wrong. It's the signature of a heart and body that love deeply in a world that was never supposed to have empty chairs. Your body is screaming, This isn't right. Because at the deepest level it isn't. Which is why we'll hit on the theology bridge next because science can describe the wound, but only the gospel can promise the healing. Now, let's line all of that up with what the Bible says. Because the two aren't fighting, they're telling the same story from different angles. Your body screams this isn't right because it isn't. My pastor said something a few years ago that truly changed my perspective on grief. He said God never designed the human heart to experience grief. That's why it hurts so bad. It's not the original setting. Think about that. Genesis 1 and 2, there's no funerals, no empty chairs, no cellulator. Death and grief crashed apart in Genesis 3 when sin enters. So when your body and soul are screaming, this isn't right, they're actually telling the truth. Grief feels like a glitch because in God's original blueprint, it was. The first recorded grief in the Bible doesn't even come from humans, it comes from God. Genesis 6 and 6, right after the flood, it says the Lord regretted that he had made man on earth, and it grieved him to his heart. The first time the Bible uses the language of grief, it's talking about God. That means grief isn't a flaw in you. It's the echo of a heartbroken creator who hates what sin has done to his world. And Jesus didn't bypass the nervous system. He entered it. Hebrews 4.15 says, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. It says we don't have a higher priest who doesn't understand us. He gets it, that's what it's saying. The same body that felt hunger, exhaustion, betrayal also felt grief so intense it scree, it squeezed blood out of his pores and gasinamine. Your cortisol spikes, your dopamine crashes, your anniversary reactions. He understands them all. Jesus didn't float above that stuff. He lived inside a human nervous system that death was never meant to touch. And the res the resurrection is the only thing that fixes biology. 1 Corinthians 15 says the dead will be raised imperishable, and this mortal body will put on immortality. One day your brain won't fire panic at the smell of Christmas cookies. One day dopamine won't crash when Christmas trees go up. One day the empty chair disappears. Until then, the pain stays physical because the curse of death is still physical. And the hope stays physical because the resurrection will make it physical. So when science says your body and your brain are responding exactly what they're wired to, respond to profound loss? Scripture's answers, of course they are, because you were wired for forever and right now forever feels stolen. The tears aren't the enemy of fate. They're the proof that you were made for a world where death loses and one day it will. That's the theology that holds the science. And that's the only foundation strong enough to build real survival tools on top of. You don't have to wait for heaven to start breathing again. You don't. Here are five things you can do this week that don't deny the hurt and don't betray the hope. You can name the ghost out loud and let people sit with you in it. At some point during the Thanksgiving meal, the Christmas meal, wherever you're at, say their name. Tell one story. Let the table go quiet if it needs to. Tears are allowed. Silence is allowed. But pretending is not. Next, you could create one new tradition that points forward. Light a candle in their memory, a toast, a donation in their name. Hang their favorite ornament on the Christmas tree while you tell your kids or your nieces or just yourself why it mattered. It says we're not stuck. We're carrying you into the future. Build an exit ramp and use an exit ramp. Pick one safe person before the day arrives and give them a code word or text signal. When the wave of grief hits, you get to step outside, cry in a car, walk the dog, whatever you need. Re-entry is easier when escape is pre-approved. Next, you need to curate your inputs ruthlessly. Mute the songs that stab. Skip the movie that pretends nobody ever dies. You're not weak. You're protecting an open wound. The songs will still be there when the scars a little dicker. Pre the next, I would say preach one line of gospel to yourself every single morning. Write it on the mirror. Set it as your phone lot screen. Because Jesus rose, this empty chair is temporary. I will see them again. The food will one day taste good and no one will have to leave. Say it until your body starts to believe what your spirit already knows. Fake it until faith makes it. You don't have to do all five of these. Pick one or two and let that be enough. But because here's the real hope this episode is gonna leave you with. That's not a hallmark lie. That's the only truth strong enough to carry an empty chair. If you're listening to this while you're hiding in the bathroom at your in-law's house, if you're listening to this while sitting in the dark with only the Christmas tree lights on because the quiet hurts less than the noise. If you're already bracing for the moment someone says they're in a better per place and you want to scream, it if you're if the thought of Thanksgiving or Merry Christmas makes you want to throw your phone into traffic, I need you to hear me. You're not broken, you're not a bad Christian, you're not stuck, you are grieving. Grieving is the price tag on loving somebody in a world that's still waiting for its final resurrection. The empty chair is loud right now, but it is not the loudest thing. In the universe. There is a louder voice. One that stood outside a tomb 2,000 years ago and shouted a name. And one day he's going to shout their names. When he does, Death is going to hand them back. No more hospital smells. No more suddenly gone. No more goodbyes. That actually meant goodbye. And most importantly, no more tears. Until that day, it's okay to hate the carols for a minute. It's okay to laugh with your cousin and still drive on the still cry on the drive home. It's okay to need an exit ramp, to need a candle, to need to say their name out loud, just to make sure the world still remembers they existed. Because love this deep was always worth the cost. And the same Jesus who wept first is the same Jesus who will wipe the last here. So keep showing up. Keep naming them. Keep surviving the season that feels like a punishment. Because the story isn't over. The table isn't finished. And the person who wrote the ending already beat the thing that's trying to destroy you. So just hold on. And I want to pray with us. Pray together. God, some of us are just so mad that we can barely speak. Some of us feel numb and guilty for feeling numb. Some of us are smiling in pictures while something inside is dying. You see, you see every bit of it. Thank you that you hated death enough to let it kill you. Thank you that the grave is still empty and that one day every other grave will be too. Hold the ones we can't hold anymore. Sit with us at the table that has a hole in it. And give us the guts to keep loving, keep hurting, and keep hoping out loud until the day you make it all make all this right. We we trust you with the ending until we see it. Don't let the chair the empty chair win. Comfort us and give us peace in the name of Jesus, the one who kicked the tomb open. Amen. The empty chair won't show up today, but one day the voice that called Lazarus is gonna call them by name, and they're coming home for Christmas forever. They're be at Thanksgiving forever. See you at the table, family. Stay real.