Here, With Us

What we need to remember to keep going in the coming days

Last week I slipped off to my favorite retreat center for a quick overnight alone. This had been a gift to me from a friend who, like me, values retreat, and encourages me to make regular space for it in my life. I like to think that this is one of the gifts that we offer each other—a steady nudge towards God always—but most especially when we can see the strain of life’s tugging on each other’s hearts.

As God’s kindness would have it, it snowed and snowed during that brief 24-hour stay and I experienced the gift of seeing those familiar grounds in a new way. Most of my trips there have been in March, when I take women there for Refine {the retreat}, and even if it has been cold then, I have never seen the grounds wrapped in a white velvet blanket of snow. Magical is the words that comes to mind. Or enchanting. Also, holy.
I was reminded of how important it is to look at familiar things through fresh lenses.

Snow has a way of quieting the earth. It has a way of quieting my own inner noise too.
Despite having walked these familiar grounds numerous times over the years, I stumbled onto a path I had never seen before. In what felt like a small act of bravery, I elected to trudge forward, deeper into the woods.

I thought I was alone, which of course, I was not. I forgot that we never truly are…

I was under the surveillance of many deer who call those woods their home. When I locked eyes with the doe who alerted the others to my presence, I held my breath, not wanting to interrupt the magic of that moment. I hadn’t seen the deer until she stood up. She’d blended in so perfectly. Seeing her suddenly, though she’d been there all along, reminded me of the constant presence of God—even when He seems hidden.

It’s been a teeth-rattling kind of year. I fear the collective heartbreak we’ve experienced is more than we’ve been able to calculate, and more than most of us know what to do with. Where do we begin to unravel the tangle of 2020? As we wait for Christmas, for the coming New Year, I have mostly questions and no answers.

On my walk through the woods, under the observance of God and the deer, I felt the pangs of peace settling over me for the first time in months. Not because anything is actually better, but because out there under the boughs of the trees, I remembered that life is beautiful still, and that in a year where it has sometimes been easy to assume otherwise, Christ is actively present, still holding all things together (Colossians 1:17).

I remembered there in the woods, that all ground is Holy because the whole earth is His. The words I’d read in Colossians floated through my mind—

“You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.” (Colossians 2:8-10, MSG)

The fullness of Christ is not hidden from us, but it may take intentional seeking to re-discover the Truths our hearts know. It takes intentional communion for relationship to flourish and nourish us.

I can’t know what your specific griefs are this season, though I’d guess we share some of the same. I want to offer this encouragement to you, even as I offer it to myself—do not grow weary in doing good.

“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians‬ ‭1:16-17‬ ‭NIV‬‬)

We may not know what the coming days will bring to us. We cannot foresee the joys nor the sorrows that await us, but we can rest in the unending promise of Immanuel—the God who is WITH us, in us, before and behind us, and remind ourselves that this is the Christmas story is the Truest story ever told, and the Light of the world is a Light that shines without fail, and that even the darkness has not (nor will not) ever overcome it.

Take a walk today in the sun or in the snow. Look at the world with hope, count the beauties that are there in the natural world, lock eyes with those that cross your path today and remember that it is the redeeming work of God in the manger, God on the cross, God in your heart, that is restoring all things, even now.

Unto us a Savior is born…

Amen, amen, amen.

Noteworthy

For further soul-encouragement, spend a little time with the Christmas issue of Cultivating.

For some community consider joining The Refinery.