Six stockings.
Four babies.
Only three kids here.

I love Christmas! Decorating our home for the holiday brings me so much joy. I am deeply grateful for my family and for the stockings we have been blessed to add to our stairs throughout the years—but every single year, the middle red stocking makes me really sad.

It always hits me when we hang them, and every time I walk through my house, during the Christmas season, I am reminded again and again that one little Tomczak is missing—Lucy.

On Christmas morning, while the rest are full, the middle red stocking hangs empty. There are three excited kids chattering together, and one sister who is not with them. A pit always forms in my stomach. For some reason, the visual representation—the ability to count things out, the magic of Christmas for children, and the ending of another year without Lucy, all combine into a tangible sadness I feel deep inside of me.

My heart holds polarizing feelings—overwhelming happiness to see our other children experience the joy of Christmas morning, and overwhelming sadness of the reality that Lucy didn’t run down the stairs with her siblings to join us on Christmas morning.

Along with that, December reminds me of the innocence we once had. It was the month before we lost Lucy. It was the last month that all we knew was joy and expectant hope. We had no idea what was coming. We didn’t know what we were about to face. We didn’t know what it felt like to say goodbye, to bury our child, to have a gaping hole in our hearts, to journey through a thick, gray cloud of grief.

We could just take the stocking down and make it easier on ourselves, but I would rather take the pain to keep her included and remembered.

My greatest pain leads to my greatest hope. My pain at Christmas leads me to the meaning of Christmas—Jesus. It reminds me that His life changed mine, it changed Lucy’s, it changed all of ours.

I don’t know why our daughter had to die. I don’t know why God allowed her to be taken from us. In my human-ness, I can’t see the entirety of His plan.  But I can rest in the fact that He loves us, He sent his son to die for us, and to defeat death forever so that we can live with Him in heaven for all eternity. The greatest possible gift of all, open to every single one of us.

I am extremely sad that Lucy is not here with us, but I am incredibly grateful that she is safe in the arms of Jesus, and that one day we will be together again.

I think it’s okay, normal in fact, to carry hope in one hand and sadness in the other. I believe they can absolutely exist together. I think the hope being there is what makes the sadness not completely take over, it keeps it in check.

God never commands us to walk around pretending we are not sad or struggling. I don’t feel one bit conflicted about my grief, in fact, I feel freedom in it. I’ve learned it has a place in my life. It’s there because I love Lucy, I carried her in my womb, I am her mother, and I wanted to raise her.

Gods love for us is unwavering. He accepts us, brokenness and all. He changes us. We will never be perfect, but He works in our hearts and He gives us what we need to make it through the pain and suffering of this world—Him.