Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Return to your rest,
O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt Bountifully with you.
Psalms 116:7

My aunt Rachel, has a wood burning stove in her home, and in the winter she lays fresh pines on the top...the aroma is really something you have to be there to believe. The cadence of seasons take the world under in turn, and winter comes in through windows and under doors. Her winter is filled with soup, and classic books, good tea, and early nights bundled in the loft where the heat gathers. Everything about her life changes as the earth does. Rachel is not a Christian, so winter doesn’t include Christmas, and though she loves creation fiercely, she doesn’t necessarily agree with the biblical view of nature being fallen, but awaiting restoration.
Christians would say that earth alone shares with man the condition of being both full of life and death, and because we are such the same, there are patterns and lessons writ large over landscapes. Rachel doesn’t love nature because Romans one says it teaches her about God or herself, she just knows she sees that divine spark in the earth and oceans.
My hope for myself and for you this Christmas, is that we would learn about rest and restoration from earth’s winters, and show up to learn all this season has to teach us about ourselves and the heart of God. I hope the days stretch out and are filled with the rejuvenation that takes place only in quiet solitude. I hope for a time of restfulness instead of busyness, to have a spark of the fire that Christ cast over the world—a slow flame that warms from within and grows to transforms all it touches.
Merry Christmas.