Friends, are you as full of hope and anticipation as I am for this newest of years?
This morning dawned dark and quiet, too quiet after the glad celebrations of December. I sat in my favorite reading chair with prayer journal in lap, head in hands. So many loved ones' needs vying for intercession that I needed to still my soul in the silence.
Then a stirring in the room, not audible but visual. I glanced up, caught my breath, held it. While I was bowed low, the sun had been rising behind the mountain range to the east. It crested the ridge, found our southern windows, and pierced the crystal prisms we hung in hope last year as the pandemic cancelled plans and dreams.
The light refracted directly onto the Nativity scene on our demi-lune table, illuminating the tiny manger. It was a liminal moment. Pay attention to the holy. It's all around you. Share the light.
And so I shall.
Someone else needs a pair of prisms to catch the light too. Leave a comment below if you or a friend are in a shadowed place where light needs to be caught and held. I'll draw a name in just five days because after that? I'm disappearing for a while.
Today I hit SEND on the first-draft files for my second book. After 60 years of always knowing What Comes Next - education, careers, children, pastorates, grad school, the making of books - I am entering my own liminal state.
So this month I'm pressing pause on social media and my weekly posts from the ridge. It's time to let my soul catch up to where my body has been these many decades. Time to sit in the silence and stillness of winter. Time to simply listen.
But first, please know how much the Rowes love you. Here are my people.
And here is a true view from the ridge - one captured by Jordan near midnight on Christmas evening.
All was calm, and all was bright.
And that is my New Year's wish for you, friend. Let's inhabit hope together.
See you in February!
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Maggie's first book, This Life We Share, is available from NavPress.
If you are reading it, please consider leaving a brief review on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, and/or Christianbook.com. Reviews and recommendations help get the message into more hands, hearts, and minds. Thank you!