A Christmas Invitation for your Soul

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Sweet Friends, this is the invitation: the same one for me and for you: “The herald of the King calls to you in this moment to come away from the crush and the crowds, to come away to a space of stillness to be ready for the coming of the Lord” (A. Voskamp, The Greatest Gift p. 210)

It doesn’t happen automatically. Doesn’t happen without intention.  As epic as it is, you’ll miss it if you don’t lean in.  I’ll miss it if I don’t lean in. 


The “eucatastrophe” is coming… the apex of we have been waiting for.  The moment when hurt and distraction and longing and disappointment and death are obliterated and the Lover makes his entrance…spectacular rescue, the battle for intimacy fought for and won, the only satisfying experience there is…that of Presence…rushes in like a broken damn.  And all this in the tiny package of a baby.

“And even now, with tiny features and dewy hair, He is great.”
Isaiah 9:6 (the Voice)

The shift from Struggle to Encounter is only one long, deep, surrendered breath away.

This is my path. From struggle to get the gifts secured, from struggle to get my work wrapped up, from struggle and fret to find a sufficient way to prepare the heart of my family for Jesus.  What if we in this family miss it?  What if we tractor beam toward the sparkle and the material and the excess and miss it? What a grievous loss it would be. It panics me a little. 

To Encounter.   “All that is left in the closing days of the Advent road—the sacredness of His presence saturating everything.  You can feel it now. Christmas becoming more. Becoming miracle.” (A. Voskamp, The Greatest Gift, p. 212)

My path looks like, for one thing, setting time aside to step outside of my Christmas life and zoom out from the camera lens of my heart. That zoomed out position and posture offers something I cant wrap my fingers around in the hustle of normal life.  My path looks like showing up in my prayer chair or on my yoga mat.  As Rumi says:
“Put seeds and cover them.
Blades will sprout
where you do your work.”

My path, the “work” I do and where Christmas blades grow satisfied, looks like showing up and slowing down. And I trust.  Things always soften, always give way, always loosen up, when I do the work of showing up and wait patiently.

Trust with me. Show up. Wherever that spot is that your soul habitually softens when you arrive.  Show up. And feel “the sacredness of His presence saturating everything.”  When you go out from there, even the hasty wrapping and the washing of dishes and the disciplining of children become holy moments.  “You can feel it now.  Christmas becoming more.  Becoming miracle” 


Thank you for sharing a passion for the fight for wholeness and thriving with me. You are a sister.  A brother.  You. Are. Loved.  

Oh, Come let us adore Him.

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