Listened to this song this evening and found it… comforting. It allowed me to slow down for a moment, to break down for a moment… in all the rush that has become this time of year. Interestingly, we were rushing headlong into this Christmas and the end of the year, not thinking much about it, business as usual,… until last Friday morning when the headlines started popping up.
Then everything came to a sudden, startling, shattering stop. We were dumbfounded, disbelieving, gut-punched, and then heartbroken.
Four days have passed and efforts to heal are taking place. It will be a ‘three steps forward, two steps back’ kind of healing, I’m sure. Funerals are underway and babies and their caretakers are being laid to rest. Stories are being shared and that’s good. It’s good to talk about it. It’s good to process, to talk, to vent, to cry, to question, to talk some more.
I determined to focus on this Advent with a little more intentionality this year. In the past, I’ve just let it fly by and afterwards wondered why I didn’t take time to reflect more on ‘the reason for the season.’ This season, though, maybe because of all that has gone on this year at work, I realized I needed to slow down (funny thing to hear from a runner…) and get my focus back to what was necessary, what was needful. It was good, too, because I believe I was a little more prepared for what happened last Friday. A little more, anyway. Heart still hurts, but it’s making me look at God’s mercy all the more. It might be a severe mercy, but it is mercy nonetheless. And I find I am in desperate need of it.
The Dawn Will Break Upon Us by Mike Crawford and His Secret Siblings
All Things Elda 