No one wants to have to deal with pain. Dealing with grief means that something happened that broke your heart. This most commonly means that we have lost a loved one to death. None of us are immune to the pain that affects us at some point in our lives. One of the most difficult times to deal with grief can be during the holidays. Everyone wants us to be optimistic and happy. They want us to be cheerful and celebrate the holidays. But if we are going through a difficult time, we may not want to be cheerful and happy. We may want to be quiet, reserved and somber. We may simply want to be left alone. People tend to avoid people who have a negative attitude during festive periods. You may have done the same thing before experiencing the pain for yourself. It's a common occurrence. We want to be around people who always seem happy and excited. These are the people who are often described as having a magnetic personality that seems to attract people towards them. There are many firsts when we grieve. The first holidays without a loved one can upset our view of the world. We see things from a different perspective when we are grieving. The holidays can be depressing even years after a loss. They may bring back memories of time spent with loved ones who are no longer with us. Some people simply decide not to celebrate the holidays to avoid painful memories. Some people will choose not to even acknowledge that the world is celebrating without them. I know people who seem to hibernate around Halloween and don't come back out until after the New Year. Some people have a lot of guilt associated with celebrating something after the death of a loved one. They seem to think that if they're happy, they don't stick to the memo...half of the paper...us. John 11:35 says, “Jesus wept.” Of course we know the rest of the story of Lazarus, how Jesus raised him from the dead. We know that Jesus wept over his friends, his enemies, and his own death. But we never read that Jesus was so overcome with grief that he “left the ministry” or was no longer able to function. It seems that he used his pain to motivate himself to do more good works. We all need time to grieve when we experience a major loss in our lives. It may take a while to feel like our feet are beneath us again. But just like Jesus, we must ultimately move on and use the loss we experience to compel or motivate us to do good. When Jesus healed Lazarus there must have been a great celebration in that house. We can't bring someone back from the grave, but we can honor their memory and do something to bring joy and comfort to someone else.