I used to be the queen at putting all things Christmas away by or at the latest New Years' Day. I mean how can you move into a new year with holiday decorations from the previous year sitting around ?!

But as I have been intentionally living life at a different pace for the last handful of years I have noticed many preferences of mine have changed.

And that’s exactly what happened at the end of last year. The last day of 2021 came and there was no desire in me to put things away as I normally did. I just kept thinking that I wanted to stay in the celebration of all that we had been anticipating for weeks. 

So the lights stayed up and on and I’ll get back to that in a bit…

The time and space between Christmas and New Years’ can have a weird vibe. For months as we’ve walked through stores and entered coffee shops and restaurants everything has told us Christmas is coming. And for some of us, it starts telling us that waaayyy too early for our preference but my point is you can’t escape the signs of Christmas anywhere!!

And no matter if you are a go all out in the presents and the celebration of Christmas you can’t deny the shift of focus and energy right after Christmas Day.  The social media posts start talking ‘all things’ New Year’ and when I was grabbing some things at the store a couple of days after Christmas this week I saw all the Valentines Day themed items being displayed.

And I know I’m not speaking for everyone but I’ve got to say that when I see all the “next,” I feel a little anxiety and resistance rising up.  I want to say can we continue to sit in the celebration of Christmas for just a moment longer?!  But I feel like that’s how our brains are becoming wired in the world we live in these days. The constant news cycles and scrolls … the next image to see, the next headline to read… it never stops unless we intentionally stop it…

What season or space do you find yourself in today?

Are you uncomfortable and trying to rush to the next?

I’m discovering that the spaces in between might just be the most important…

The quiet and seemingly nothingness in between the big events and momentous occasions. 

Those spaces take more intention to stay in, more than ever these days.

It’s interesting because so often we think of words like faith and courage when we see the big and flashy yet those are the words that rise up when I think about living in the spaces in between.

Not surprisingly I’ve been thinking about Mary during this season and reminded out often we tend to emphasize the big events in her life, like an angel appearing and her giving birth to the son of God. and those moments are incredible!! But there are so many spaces of life lived out in between all the events written about her.

What were moments and days like for her after the angel appeared to her? The in-between space of waiting …

Waiting for the word spoken over her life to be seen.

I’m sure many moments of choosing faith over fear 

And having to over and over say yes and surrender to the plans God had for her.

Like you listening, I’m sure Mary had dreams about what her future would be like which didn’t involve an Angel appearing to her and her giving birth to the Messiah.

Mary had to surrender the way she thought things would be and trust what had been spoken over her.

And what Mary said yes to wasn’t a play-by-play daily journal of how everything was going to play out in her life.

And it’s the same for us. God speaks something in our spirit and invites us to co-laboring with him.  Yet the details of that process aren’t all laid out for us. 

It’s a walk of faith. 

A walk and season you hadn’t dreamed about or anticipated for your life yet here you are.

Are you willing for God to change your plans?

I want to share a journal entry from a few months ago that I wrote about those lights I mentioned earlier…

The lights went out today…

They’ve been on since December

I had decided on a decorating whim to weave them in and out of items on a shelf above the kitchen sink.

Christmas festivities came and went as did New Years’ and when all the other holiday decorations came down and were packed away, the lights stayed.

Little did I know that a few short weeks later life would deliver what felt like a crushing loss.

The days following were a blur

Everything familiar was suddenly gone.

But the lights were still on.

It’s felt silly at times how much those lights remaining on has mattered to me

I wasn’t exactly sure why seeing them first thing in the darkness of morning 

was somehow peaceful and hopeful to me

I just knew that it was.

Maybe in some way, I was choosing to continue the spirit of celebration + joy 

in which they were put up

Maybe they were in a way showing me the way forward 

when things like celebration + joy seemed distant and in the past

Maybe for me, these lights are those stones of remembrance that were talked about in scripture

Maybe in generations to come, my grandchildren’s children will be talking about the lights in Mimi’s house as a testament to the life and light of God within us that the things or people of this world can never extinguish.

I hope whatever space you find yourself in as we start a new year… you know you are not alone. I’m convinced God does his best work in the spaces in between…