I’ve decided this year to create a Bloggy Advent Calendar for the 25 Days beginning today and leading us to Christmas Day. In part because I need this for myself and in part because I feel called to do it. And hey, while it might not be like the kids’ yummy Advent calendars filled with chocolates (or in the case of my son, his new Lego City one which has a Lego toy for each day), I do hope you will take the time to go on this journey with me. Because Advent means “coming”, and yet so many times I just flat out MISS IT. I mean, I get so preoccupied with my to do list, decorating, buying presents, making cards, attending parties and programs and holiday this and that that I just am never IN the moment.
I’ve been inspired by 2 books that have come along just in the “Nick” of time in this crazy, chaotic time that leads up to Christmas. Both of them, ironically, contain imagery of gifts. And both of them, appropriately, call us to put our focus on CHRIST this Christmas. I’ll tell you about the first one today and save the next for tomorrow…(how’d ya like that for a teaser?) Plus, every day I will tell you about my all-time favorite Christmas music tunes (right down who I think performed it best–kinda like I am one of the judges on The Voice or something!)
1. The Greatest Gift
Ann Voskamp is an exceptional writer that I first stumbled on in 2011. Her book One Thousand Gifts sprung from a friend’s simple question: could you write a list of a thousand things you love? Voskamp set out to do just that, but the book is so much more than a laundry list of thanksgiving. For instance, she quotes a pastor’s most profound regret in life: “Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing….Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
So her new devotional guide walks us through Advent. Instead of the Christmas tree, the Jesse Tree is the image she harkens us back to-the family tree of Jesus. Isaiah 11:1 tells us that out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot.” We are a part of this family tree, this lineage. “Christ comes right to your Christmas tree and looks at your family tree and says, ‘I am your God, and I am one of you, and I’ll be the Gift, and I’ll take you. Take Me?'” And here’s where she nails it for so many of us:
“It is possible for you to miss it. To brush past it, to rush through it, to not see how it comes for you up over the edges of everything, quiet and unassuming and miraculous–how every page of the Word has been writing it, reaching for you, coming for you. And you could wake on Christmas only to grasp that you never took the whole of the Gift, the wide expanse of grace. So now we pause. Still. Ponder Hush Wait. Each day of Advent, He gives you the gift of time, so you have time to be still and wait.”
Amen, Ann. I always love bringing things back around to music, and there are so many wondrous songs that my plan is to feature one each day of this journey. One of my favorites is “Winter Snow” featuring Audrey Assad. If you don’t know it or have it, go get it. Now.
Could’ve come like a mighty storm
With all the strength of a hurricane
You could’ve come like a forest fire
With the power of Heaven in Your flameBut You came like a winter snow
Quiet and soft and slow
Falling from the sky in the night
To the earth belowYou could’ve swept in like a tidal wave
Or an ocean to ravish our hearts
You could have come through like a roaring flood
To wipe away the things we’ve scarredBut You came like a winter snow, yes, You did
You were quiet, You were soft and slow
Falling from the sky in the night
To the earth belowOoh no, Your voice wasn’t in a bush burning
No, Your voice wasn’t in a rushing wind
It was still, it was small, it was hiddenOh, You came like a winter snow
Quiet and soft and slow
Falling from the sky in the night
To the earth belowFalling, oh yeah, to the earth below
You came falling from the sky in the night
To the earth below.
Reminds me of the first verse of “Still, Still, Still”
Still, still, still,
One can hear the falling snow.
For all is hushed,
The world is sleeping,
Holy Star its vigil keeping.
Still, still, still,
One can hear the falling snow.
I want to hear THAT falling, winter snow. I’m straining to hear it over the noise and hoopla and commercials. It’s like the scene from How the Grinch Stole Christmas where all the Whos in Whoville are banging on the instruments and all the NOISE, NOISE, NOISE, NOISE!
So tune out all the noise that distracts you, but DO watch this video and see if you too will want to come along on this Advent adventure with me…it is SO worth it!
-Sherry