Joy and Grief During Advent: Letting Light In Without Guilt

Joy and grief during Advent-both coexist

Advent arrives softly, almost tenderly, with its candles and promises—hope, peace, joy, love. Yet, when you're grieving, those words can feel complicated—especially joy.

Joy can feel like the one thing you’re not allowed to touch when your heart is still aching. Like a betrayal of your love. Like something reserved for people whose lives haven’t been shattered by loss.

For a long time, I believed that joy and grief were opposites and that one could erase the other. But grief has taught me otherwise, as have research and faith.

Happiness Is Circumstantial. Joy Is Something Deeper.

Psychology makes an essential distinction between happiness and deeper emotional states often linked to joy or meaningful well-being.

Happiness is often dependent on circumstances. It increases and decreases in response to what happens around us—such as celebrations, comfort, and good news. It’s genuine and precious, but also delicate.

Grief exposes this quickly.

Research consistently shows that grief often intensifies during holidays. Traditions, empty chairs, familiar songs, and the pressure to “be happy” can deepen loneliness and distress. Mental health professionals note that forced positivity during this season can actually make grief heavier, not lighter.

But research also reveals something meaningful and hopeful: positive emotions can coexist with grief.

Studies of bereaved individuals—across belief systems—show that moments of warmth, laughter, gratitude, or connection do not diminish grief or love for the person who died. Instead, these moments help regulate stress, reduce depression, and support long-term emotional adjustment.

Grief remains, but it becomes more bearable.

Joy Is Human, Not Just Religious

What’s striking is that this holds even in secular research.

Psychologists describe joy not merely as pleasure, but as a deep emotional experience rooted in meaning, connection, and values. People, believers and nonbelievers alike, experience joy when they feel connected to others, when they honor the memory of someone they’ve lost, or when they live in alignment with what matters most to them. Researchers call this meaning-making: the human capacity to rebuild purpose after loss.

Joy is part of our shared humanity.

And yet, for those of us who have faith, Scripture gives language to what science observes: joy is not the absence of sorrow; it is the presence of something steady beneath it.

Choosing Joy After the Loss of a Child

Kay Warren, who lost her son Matthew to suicide, speaks to this dichotomy in her book Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn’t Enough. She does not suggest that joy comes easily or naturally after a devastating loss. After her son’s death, joy was not something she felt, but something she had to choose, not once, but again and again.

For her, joy became an act of trust—anchored not in circumstances, but in what she knew to be true. Her words resonate deeply with parents who see this kind of loss:

Joy is not denial. It is not forgetting. It is survival. It is choosing to remain open to life when grief tempts us to shut down.

Advent: A Season That Honors Waiting

This is why Advent matters so much when you are grieving. Advent is not Christmas. It is not a resolution. It is waiting. It sits in the space between what has been lost and what we still hope for. The church does not rush us to celebration; instead, it invites us to stay in the dark, lighting candles slowly—one by one.

Light comes gradually. That is how grief works. That is how healing works and that is how joy often arrives.

Letting Go of Guilt in Grief

To be fully functioning human beings, we are meant to experience joy, happiness, and laughter. These are not betrayals of grief. They are part of what keeps us alive. There is no reason to feel guilty about moments of light, even after profound loss. Grief is already complex enough without adding guilt or shame. Guilt does not honor the person we loss. It does not deepen love. It does not protect memory. Guilt in grief benefits no one. It only causes the living to suffer more.

When it comes to grief, if you’re not hurting yourself or anybody else, you do you.

Laugh if you can. Rest when you need to. Create new traditions. Hold onto old ones.

There is no single right way to grieve.

What Joy Looks Like in Grief

Joy in grief does not look like pretending everything is okay.

It looks like:

• Letting sorrow exist without being consumed by it

• Remembering your loved one with tears and tenderness

• Allowing moments of peace without apology

• Staying connected to others, to purpose, to God.

  
  

For me, joy has arrived quietly, often unexpectedly, alongside memories of my son, Kevin. It has not erased the pain of missing him. Nothing ever will. But it has reminded me that love did not end when his life did.

Joy has not been loud. It has been gentle. It has been steady. Sometimes joy is simply the strength to keep going. Sometimes it is the courage to feel everything and to remain open. Sometimes it is trusting—day by day—that love and meaning still matter.

An Invitation This Advent

If you are grieving this Advent, hear this clearly: you are not required to feel happy. You are not failing if joy feels distant. You are not broken if this season hurts. Advent makes room for longing.

• Light a candle for the one you miss.

• Speak their name.

• Tell their story.

• Let grief be honest.

And if a quiet moment of warmth, meaning, or peace finds you, don’t push it away. That may be joy. Not as pressure. Not as performance. But as presence.

I feel joy when I am with my daughter and family. Yes, I feel Kevin’s absence more acutely in those moments, but I also have deep gratitude for my daughter, whom I love just as fiercely as I love Kevin. One love does not replace the other, and one presence does not erase the absence. This holiday season, I will hold both. I will yearn for Kevin’s presence as I make memories with my family. I will allow laughter and tenderness without guilt, and embrace grief when it shows up. This is the meaning of joy that it can exist alongside sorrow. Love is large enough to hold them both.

Joy does not mean the pain is gone, but means you are still loving, connected, and here. This Advent, may joy meet you gently, not as an ending, but as light in the waiting.

If you’d like to walk this season together, follow along or share this reflection with someone who may need it. Wishing you hope, peace, and joy in your journey of grief.