Two hours of Christmas shopping in a relaxed manner, no small people demanding stuff and a lovely brunch with the husbandface in the middle.
Coffee.
Pushing out for a early evening run with Christmas sparkly lights all around. I haven’t been out much in the dark this year and I love this weird season of blazing twinkly lights all around our streets. Much wonder as I pottered along.
Son1’s delight in his early Christmas present Scooter (sadly the old one died just a little too soon). Quick flashing light scoot around the block.
A nights sleep in my bed without a small person kicking my back. Waking up with just the amazing husbandface.
Hope after a year and a half of grim.
New job for my favourite and best, the joy of hope, a place where he can use his gifts and a place where he can geek out with his work colleagues at last. A new chapter is about to start.
Running in the freezing cold. Insanely beautiful sunset over the Downs, blazing red through dark winter trees.
This isn’t an Advent song at all. It was going to be our last song after my sermon at church this morning. Sadly time ran out and although we managed to listen to the excellent ‘Everest’ by Iain Archer, we didn’t make it to this one.
‘I will sing the wondrous story’ is one of my favourite hymns. This morning we were looking at Isaiah and the things he calls us to wait for in Advent. We looked at the vast story of history and our place in it waiting, longing for and anticipating Jesus coming again. We looked at the long wait, the amazing future we are waiting for and how we can wait well in this life.
This hymn kind of sums all of that up in a few verses. I love it’s joy at how brilliant the story is. I love the retelling of how I was lost and Jesus found me. I love it’s realism about life here. Days of darkness come over me so often. Sorrow’s path is one we all tread in this world. I love that it reminds me that I will be kept until the end. It reminds me that we are held in the dark and one day the morning will come.
I will sing the wondrous story
Of the Christ Who died for me;
How He left the clouds in glory
For the cross of Calvary.
Yes, I’ll sing the wondrous story
Of the Christ Who died for me,
Sing it with the saints in glory,
Gathered by the crystal sea.
I was lost, but Jesus found me,
Found the sheep that went astray,
Threw His loving arms around me,
Drew me back into His way.
I was bruised, but Jesus healed me,
Faint was I from many a fall,
Sight was gone, and fears possessed me,
But He freed me from them all.
Days of darkness still come o’er me,
Sorrow’s path I often tread,
But His presence still is with me;
By His guiding hand I’m led.
He will keep me till the river
Rolls its waters at my feet;
Then He’ll bear me safely over,
Saved by grace and made complete.
My parents jumped into the madness and made many things more bearable today. The frost was pretty. The wine was good. The Christmas Fair was crazy but it felt great to be part of the school community. Also this quote from Lord of the Rings kind of helps me cling on.
But Sam lay back, and started with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last has gasped: ‘Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?’
‘A great shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.
‘How do I feel?’ he cried. ‘Well I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel’ – he waved his arms in the air – ‘I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!’
The wonder
The wonder.
The Long Walk Home 