(this is the first in my series of guest posts on advent. if you’d like to participate, comment on this post.)

my friend suzanne is brilliant. no, really. she is. this is evidenced not only by the fact that she graduated as the truett female student of the year, but also by the fact she is working on a master’s degree at oxford university (perhaps you’ve heard of it.) we met years ago in a fairly dysfunctional life-group and then slowly began to do life together in beautiful ways. a founding member of the onion, there is a definitive suzanne-shaped hole in our waco lives. she blogs at aurora’s torch.


The morning air is cold today. So cold, it crystallizes into foggy puffs at every exhale. The snow drifts slowly to the ground and the lights of the observatory create a yellow haze in the gray dawning light. It is quiet and I smile as I hear the crunch of the snow under my boots. They had predicted a cold winter, and as assumed the unseasonably warm autumn gave way into a frigid winter with snow blanketing the entire country, grinding transportation to a halt and delaying flights. Nevertheless, there is something about a first snowfall that clings to my mind and heart. Things are quiet. Life seems to slow down for just an instant and with wonder I loose myself in the peaceful respite I find in the silently falling snow.

With similar awe I find myself standing quietly in advent this year. The expectant hope of God becoming human settles in my thoughts with a comfort and nearness I have not felt in many years. For the first time in a long time, I can feel God funnelling all the brilliance and glory into this one single moment and all I can do is stand in wonder. God with us. The power of something new, of something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but hovers at the horizon of my hope makes life slow and the full power of the event sweep over my soul. God drawing near; God wearing skin; God walking among us.

The magnitude of this should be the impact of an avalanche whiting out my mind, but it is not violent or soul shattering this season. Instead the idea of God with us is a quiet, peace filled moment, like experiencing a first snowfall, silently watching unique little miracles pile up, covering the withered life of the past. For me, this advent I am experiencing the daily miracles of hope pile up, covering the withered life of my past. The dead dreams and hopes, the unmet expectations and assumptions, the horror and sadness, the loss and pain, the disillusionment and disappointment are quietly covered in the silently falling snow of incarnated hope. Things look beautiful again, clean, innocent, happy. I find myself standing quietly in advent with hope drifting into my heart, knowing that God is restoring a battered faith and creating new life. My cynicism and bitterness lessen daily as I remember how to hope and how to embrace that hope.

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