Advent: A Season of Hope in the Midst of Empty Chairs

Advent: A Season of Hope in the Midst of Empty Chairs

Advent is a season of waiting, and grief understands waiting well.
The holiday season makes absence louder. The table feels bigger and emptier all at once. There are chairs that no longer scrape against the floor, voices that no longer rise over laughter, traditions that remain but ache differently now.

I miss my dad. I miss my grandmas and my grandpa. And I miss three of my children who will never open gifts or run into the room with excitement on Christmas morning. Grief does not follow a calendar. You don’t get over the people you love. You learn how to carry them, even as the years move forward.

We still cry when we talk about them for too long. Sometimes the tears come suddenly, even years later. Scripture does not tell us to hide this. “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Even knowing resurrection was moments away, Christ entered fully into sorrow. God is not afraid of our tears.

Advent reminds me that waiting is not empty—it is holy. We wait in the dark because we trust that light is coming. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2). Christ came into a broken world, not to deny suffering, but to redeem it.

I can hope because those I miss lived with assurance of salvation. They knew the Lord, trusted Him, and belong to Him still. “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:14). Death did not claim them. Christ did.

When it comes to my children, Scripture is quieter. The Bible does not spell out their eternity in detail. But Advent teaches me to trust the character of God when answers are not complete. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25). I know who God is. I know His goodness, His mercy, His love. The God who knit my children together, who knew them before I ever carried them, loves them more perfectly than I ever could.

Jesus welcomed children without condition. “Let the little children come to me… for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). Because of who God is, I carry a confident hope—not presumption, not denial of grief—but trust that one day I will be reunited with my children in the presence of Christ.

Advent holds grief and hope together. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18). Near in the waiting. Near in the emptiness. Near at tables with missing chairs. We do not grieve without hope, but we do grieve deeply. “For we do not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). That does not mean we grieve less. It means our grief is carried by promise. “He has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We ache because we were made for forever, and because love was never meant to end in separation and death was not part of God’s original design.

Advent does not rush us to joy—it prepares us for it. We wait for the day God promises: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:4). Until then, I wait. I miss them. I cry. And I trust that the Light has already come—and is coming again.