I love the new year. It’s a time for fresh starts and resolutions. For unseasoned dreams and new beginnings. I love this part of time — when it feels like the chalkboard has been washed clean and our latest draft can be written without strikethroughs or eraser marks.
I think in this season, grace seems a bit easier to extend to others. I tend to breathe deeper this time of year. I truly loathe the cold and the snow, but I adore breathing in the cool moisture that typically fills the southern air. I move slower during the winter months. I don’t stay as busy and I find much solace in reading or journaling by a fire. Something about the darker hours and slower pace of the winter months renews me.
I find Jesus in those moments. Just this weekend, I sat in a Nashville coffee shop watching small flakes of snow sprinkle the bushes just beyond the window. Lantern lights dotted the skyline and couples walked up and down the sidewalk huddled close. I couldn’t help but smile at how cold, blistering winds actually draw people together.
The quote below is something I read the other day… it resonated deep. Maybe it’s because I typically live a hurried life. The winter is atypical to my schedule the other nine months of the year. I’ve never enjoyed winter, but my desire for early sunsets and quiet evenings at home seems to be growing. Maybe it’s why this quote struck me so profoundly… because normally, my life is lived in the squished and stretched places. Katie is right. It is those moments He came for. But He’s also here in the quiet still of snow falling. He’s in the rush of a wind against your bare face. He’s in the moments in front of a fire with His word open.
Winter is a season of barrenness, of pruning. It is a necessary season for things to bloom again, to become new again. Without the rain, there can be no sun. This year, my wish is for you to find Jesus wherever you are, in whatever season of life you’re in. Find Him in the quiet places. Find Him in the busy places. Find Him in the hope a new year brings.
“The squished places and the stretched places, the moments that are loud and messy and uncertain, this is what He came for. The heartaches and the doubt and the wounds that our sin carves deep, that’s why He is here. And all this life hanging in the dark of the morning, isn’t this why we wait, why we celebrate? Isn’t this why we light up the candles and the tree and the house and say with all the longing in our hearts, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’?” –Katie Davis
Happy New Year. May yours be full of goodness and grace.