It's early on the morning of Christmas 2005 and I'm about to retire for the night. It seems lately that Christmas comes and goes so quickly. Everyone gets caught up in the craziness and clutter of it all. Things get wrapped up and tied up and pushed aside to make room for the parties and cookies and toys. Tonight, after a family celebration, I went out with my dad. Movies needed to get back to Blockbuster and I needed gas in my car. Just the last few errands before it could actually be Christmas. You know. On the road everything was quite. Very few cars were even traveling. We actually couldn't go to the first gas station we tried because it was closed.
It occurred to me that I liked that feeling. And found myself wishing that the hecticness of life would stop more frequently. For a brief moment, as we drove down a very dark version of Randall Road, I found a symbol of the image I wish to carry with me into the new year. Dark store fronts and empty parking lots. What they rang in my head was simply stillness and quiet. There hasn't been enough of that in my life. Or really anywhere around me lately. But as we drove to an open gas station, the quiet of the suburban streets tonight resonated deep within me; to a place where I long for that image to make its home in my soul this year. Dark store fronts and empty parking lots.
So as you celebrate this Christmas
Enjoy your family.
Enjoy the food.
Enjoy the gifts.
And in the new year...
Encourage those around you to leave space for quietness.
The next time you drive by a dark or abandon store front, take a moment with God.
If you happen upon an empty parking lot, go sit there a minute and pray.
Enjoy Christ.
Merry Christmas!
Back in college, in 2004 when blogging was hardly even a thing yet, I was here. Blogging before blogging meant anything to anyone. You can look in the archives for my past writings, but it was much more like a journal in the past. When we started fundraising, I messed around with the idea of launching something new for this new phase of our journey but actually hated that idea. I am a sum of all of my life and so much of it is here already. So I'm keeping it here. At least for now.
My main focus these days is blogging about our newest journey into the bizarre and wonderful world of gestational surrogacy. Posts dated 2013 and forward will trend heavily toward that journey. I don't promise everything I write will be about though. There might be other things that sneak in occasionally.
Please come along our journey with us. As the saying goes, "The more, the merrier!"
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