When you go home for the holidays, sometimes something strange happens.
Perhaps despite your best intentions, you become like a young kid again. Even if you’ve spent years growing, healing, praying, maybe even going to therapy or mentorship, there is something about going home that can bring you back 20 years in the blink of an eye.
A tone of voice, a comment about politics, a sibling’s inside joke, or a familiar smell and suddenly the person you’ve become take a break and the person you were re-emerges.
Maybe you love your family. And maybe you struggle to. Either way, loving them doesn’t mean you don’t feel the sting of old wounds or the ache of unmet needs. Or that it ever goes away entirely
Why we regress
Our bodies and brains remember things our minds forget. Family homes are emotional time machines: sights, smells, and patterns trigger old neural pathways. It’s not immaturity. It’s memory.
As adults, though, we are given a sacred opportunity.
We don’t have to fall into old patterns, nor do we have to stay there.
We can pause, notice what’s happening inside, and ask God for the grace to stay present to who we are now, not who we were.
When compassion isn’t enough
A lot of modern advice ends at compassion: “Understand their trauma, forgive their behavior, move on.”
That’s good—but incomplete. Compassion names the wound. Mercy heals it.
Mercy goes further. It says: “Lord, I see their brokenness. I see mine too. Have mercy on both of us.”
Mercy releases control. It stops trying to fix or win or prove. It hands the relationship back to God. Here is a simple, practical and easily repeatable way to turn mercy from a desire into a lived reality.
Putting Mercy into Practice
- Name the ache. Before the gathering, ask yourself, What am I afraid will happen? Don’t shame the answer. Get curious. Become aware of the ache. Name it without judgment.
- Breathe with Jesus. When anxiety rises, imagine Him sitting beside you at the table, quietly loving every person in the room. That includes loving you. See him loving you where you are, grounding you, and helping you to reconnect with the present moment
- Refuse the old script. You don’t have to play the same role to stay connected. You can show up as the person you’ve become. You can handle what happens next. And Jesus won’t leave you.
- Choose mercy over management. You can’t control how others act, but you can decide to respond with peace, not panic. You can be who you are now precisely where your feet are. And you can choose to extend mercy to others in the room, including yourself.
Mercy doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It means seeing reality clearly: your limits, their wounds, God’s presence. And responding from love instead of fear.
Because maybe your family won’t change this Thanksgiving. But you might. And that’s enough.