A quiet place

It has been almost one full year since I have posted anything. Almost one full year since I have written much of anything at all. For someone like me who writes to find herself, this is unimaginable.

Of course, I have journals filled with my soul-wanderings. I have maybe journaled more this year than at any time in my life. But when I tried to create words for others, attempted to pen anything worth offering, the well of words went dry.

Looking back, I think God had a lot of words for me this year. And I think he wanted me to give him—only him—my words in return. He took me to a secret place that I still do not fully understand. But I am grateful. I feel stilled in a new way. I wish I could say I am wiser and quieter. But I know that God is nearer for the silence.

And today, the first day of Advent, I am thinking about four hundred years of silence between the prophets’ messages and the coming of Jesus. Four centuriesof a dry well. A people walking in darkness. I have often wondered if those people for whom God was silent felt abandoned.

Or was he really silent? Maybe he was pouring into them in the quiet dark.

Zeph 3:17

The Lord your God is in your midst,  a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness;  he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Maybe God gave his people four hundred years of whispering just to them, then, unseen, received their words in return. I can see him collecting their prayers, storing them up like cherished treasure, and pouring over them his quiet love. Taking them to a secret place, preparing their hearts for the song about to burst from him.

Today is Day One. If you are celebrating The Holidays, you are entering into a time of frenzy, a time of spending and making and giving and planning and cooking and decorating and pouring yourself out in exhaustion.

But if you are celebrating Advent, you are receiving the coming of Christ. You are letting him pour over you. And here are just a few more things Zephaniah 3 declares for those who receive him:

He takes away the judgments against you.

He contends with your enemies.

He is in your midst.

You shall never again fear evil.

He gathers those who mourn and prepares you for the festival.

You will no longer suffer reproach.

He saves the lame and gathers the outcast.

He changes shame into praise.

He brings you in and gathers you together.

And what does he ask of you?

“Sing aloud . . . Rejoice and exult with all your heart.”

Maybe he wants to take you to the secret place where he will quiet you and sing over you all at once. Maybe he just wants you to find him.

Maybe we could make this, just this, our Advent?