Do you find yourself drawn to the seasons of Advent and Christmastide? Because honestly, I never really have.
Easter on the other hand? Gosh yes. I can’t help it; the hype is visceral for me. I wake up on Easter Sunday with adrenaline coursing through my body. Anyone who has lived with me in the past 5 years or so knows I will be up before the dawn, pumping Third Day through somebody’s Bluetooth speaker, making pancakes, saying, “HE IS RISEN! HE’S ALIVE!” to whoever is in earshot. “Morning has broken!”
But Jesus getting here? The waiting and then His arriving like a soft touch on the shoulder? Quietly, in each of our little darknesses?
“Long is not forever.” – German Proverb
“The fields of hope in which I sow / are harvested in Heaven.” – Stuart Townend, Psalm 62
Patience (and surrender, for that matter) is not a virtue of mine— maybe a virtue I can will, but not a virtue formed in the heart, that’s for sure.
This fall, I went up to visit high schools in the rural area outside of Vancouver, British Colombia, for my job. What I could not have anticipated was how inconceivably low the speed limits are there. 60 mph tops on freeways, 20 or 25 almost everywhere else. They drive so slow, in fact, that I had trouble steering my car at these speeds. The drivers are also so polite that if, say, a tractor or other piece of farm equipment is to pull onto the two-lane highway that is my only route to the school visit I am already late for, no one will pass it. We will all sit behind it. And drive. Slowly.
God taught me something in my body during that trip, driving. It is a physiological experience of His way of life that He invites me to remember often. I get swept forward in the adrenaline rush of the visions for my life: dry erase marker squeaking up a storm, sweat on my forehead, as I list out every last detail; a whiteboard full of plans I have for myself. My relationships, deepest longings, highest hopes—mind and soul departing my body for Planet Grace, where Grace makes Grace’s dreams come true faster faster God this car in front of me is going SO SLOWLY! WHY ARE YOU GOING SO SLOWLY?! HIT THE GAS, BROTHER, WE’VE GOT A ROCKET TO CATCH!
And God says: Come back to your body, Grace.
And I can feel myself settle, step off the gas, and receive something. Like bread.
Long is not forever. Whatever I am waiting on? Rushing towards? Lost in? Jesus comes, like manna, into my little darkness. He opens me to His (my) life. Right here. Right in the Little Town of Bethlehem. Not an inconvenience, but an embrace: green pasture, still water. A place to lie down for a while.
“No ear may hear His coming / but in this world of sin, / where meek souls will receive Him still / the dear Christ enters in.” – O Little Town of Bethlehem
That is Christmas, I think. Into every darkness, His light has come.
🙂 Grace
© 2025 Grace H Shaw