Rejected Yet Remembered: What The Holidays Don't Heal — Part 2

Rejected Yet Remembered: What The Holidays Don't Heal — Part 2

Note:  This is the second instalment of a three part series.  You will find links to the others here:

Part One                Part Two                Part Three

The days after Christmas hit differently when you’re rebuilding your life from the ground up. The noise fades, the lights come down, and you’re left with the same questions you carried into December — just heavier now that the world expects you to “feel better.”

And somehow, a song from the ’80s still nails it:

“Merry Christmas, I wrapped it up and sent it… with a note saying I love you — I meant it.”

The last gifts I gave my oldest ended up in the trash. It broke something in me. I don’t have much, and watching something from my heart tossed aside like junk left me feeling small. Still, I bought all four kids something for Christmas this year. Simple. Thoughtful. I don’t know if they’ll keep them. I just hope I get to see them long enough to hand the gifts over myself.

This is the part no one talks about.
The loneliness that doesn’t wait for December 25th or January 1st. The silence after the holiday check-ins stop. The way people cheer for you in public but quietly step back when the work of staying alive, sober, sane, or simply standing becomes too real.

But here’s the thread I keep holding onto:

“Persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” — 2 Corinthians 4:9

That verse doesn’t promise a soft landing. It promises survival. It promises presence. It says that even when everything falls apart — your reputation, your relationships, your sense of worth — you’re not discarded. Not by God. Not by the One who sees the whole damn story, even the pieces you’d rather forget.

And maybe that’s the real tension of this season:
you can feel rejected and still not be alone.
You can feel forgotten by people and still be remembered by God.

That doesn’t fix everything. But it keeps the flame alive for one more cold night.

The Financial Tightrope I Walk

There are things you expect after being released from incarceration. Instability is chief among them. Financially, I’m vulnerable in ways most people never see. I’m on Ontario Works — about $775 a month. Rent is $500 because I negotiated with the program director; otherwise it’s $600. That’s already a math equation that doesn’t work.

I’ve been working part-time at Wendy’s for about a month. Around $1,000 after taxes. Because of that, I’m probably losing Ontario Works in January. So now I’m working, but making less. I don’t want luxury. I just want a life where the bottom doesn’t fall out if I sneeze wrong.

I’m hoping to start school in March 2026, but until then the tightrope is real. One slip and I’m back in a place I can’t afford to be.

The Emotional Toll of Estrangement

I am basically cut out of my kids’ lives any time my ex decides so. It breaks something in me every day. I see my kids struggling, I know what the right thing to do is, and I’m completely powerless to help. I’m willing — God knows I’m willing — but willingness doesn’t matter without access.

I feel forgotten daily.
I worry I’m becoming less relevant as time goes on.
I hate knowing they need me, but knowing I can’t be there in the ways that matter most.

I feel guilty, even though so much of this is out of my hands.

But I hold onto this:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9

Most days, weakness is all I’ve got. If God’s strength is being made perfect in that, then He must be building something powerful, because I’ve got no shortage of weak places.

Wrestling With Faith and Tension

The quiet moments are the hardest.
I used to deliver Uber Eats on an e-bike — busy enough to keep my mind from collapsing in on itself. Now I’m restricted to around 20 hours a week. Less noise. More thoughts. More wrestling.

I serve at my church when I can, but that only fills so much space. Some days I feel like Christ is walking beside me. Other days it feels like I’m walking alone, whispering prayers that bounce back in echoes.

I trust God has me on the right path.
But the right path still has potholes, cliffs, and days where you’re dragging yourself forward by prayer alone.

I’m not only a father — I’m a man rebuilding from the inside out.
And I’m trying, every single day, to make sure the man I’m becoming is someone my kids could be proud of if life ever lets them see me clearly again.

But here’s the truth I keep circling back to:

The holidays don’t fix the damage — they just shine a spotlight on what you’ve been trying not to look at.
When the decorations go back in the boxes and everyone returns to their normal lives, you’re left staring at the pieces that still haven’t come together. And some of those pieces… I don’t even know where they fit anymore.

There are nights I sit on the edge of my bed and feel the weight settle in — the financial fear, the quiet house, the empty phone, the kids I can’t reach, the future that feels like it’s asking more of me than I have left to give. People say “it gets better,” but they don’t tell you how long the in-between can last. They don’t tell you how hard it is to stay steady when you feel like one wrong step could send everything crashing down again.

And this is the part I don’t say out loud:
I’m scared.
Not of going back to jail. Not of starting over.
But of disappearing — of becoming someone my kids forget, someone God remembers but the world never sees again.

That’s the tension I’m carrying into the new year.
That’s the weight Part 3 has to face head-on.

Because the real battle isn’t Christmas.
It’s what happens after — when the lights fade, the support dries up, and you’re left rebuilding the parts of yourself no one else knows are broken.

Part 3 is where I finally stop dodging the hardest questions:
Who am I now?
Who am I becoming?
And what does it really take to keep going when the world moves on without you?

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