Silent Night

God I’m busy. 

This is a declaration, my first response when someone asks me how I am.  When I ask myself how I am. 

I know I’m not alone.  I’m not the only one falling into bed depleted, exhausted, playing that cruelest of jokes on my heart by asking, “What’s left on the checklist?”, as if it ever ends. 

As if every item isn’t replaced by three.  As if anyone ever finally crosses through Laundry. 

Every day is triage.  What’s hemorrhaging the worst?  A work deadline, a child, something for church, the house?     

I know it’s a season in my life.  The Juggling It All season.  And that one day, I actually will pack for a trip a day or two in advance.  And maintain an herb garden.  And meal prep on weekends.  And keep a clean car that doesn’t smell faintly of sour milk.   

But this afternoon I said my go-to phrase aloud to myself: God, I’m busy.  And I realized this was more than a fact.  Today it was a prayer.  

Tugging at the corner of my mind all day was this thought:

It’s December 1^st. 

The start of elves hiding on shelves.  The start of children opening tiny advent boxes that I’ve filled with treats.  The start of the over-stuffed social calendar, weekends out of town, visits with family, school nativities and piano recitals.  The start of office galas, and fundraisers, and potlucks.  The start of shopping (and more checklists).  And trying to declutter, anticipating all the unwrapping of more stuff.  

From somewhere deep inside—past all that so much MORE vying for my attention—my heart whispered, “Let’s please not miss it.  I love this season.  Can we please not miss it?  I really don’t want to miss Him in it.  I can tell that’s where we’re headed, but, please let’s not.”

It was such a desperate plea.  So childlike and so sincere, that I actually listened to it for a moment.  I took a short break, and I read the first day of an advent devotional.  And it said: 

“ This, this, is the love story that’s been coming for you since the beginning.  

It is possible for you to miss it.  

To brush past it, to rush through it, to not see how it comes for you up over the edges of everything, quiet and unassuming and miraculous—how every page of the Word has been writing it, reaching for you, coming for you.  And you could wake up on Christmas only to grasp that you never took the whole of the Gift, the wide expanse of grace.  So now we pause.  Still.  Ponder.  Hush.  Wait.  Each day of Advent, He gives you the gift of time, so you have time to be still and wait.”  

Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift

And I cried. 

Truth is, even though busyness feels so new—so Today—it’s as old as time.  

Jesus came into the world on a night much the same as ours.  The innkeeper was very busy at the inn.  Bethlehem was busy about the census.  Herod was busy at his palace.  People were busy with work and busy with politics: fighting taxes, collecting taxes, fighting Rome, befriending Rome.  Some of them were busy about God’s work, at the temple and in study.  Busy in service and in charity, with family and with flocks.   

Truth is, the checklist will always be there.  And as long as we’re just busy enough to shush our hearts when they tug at us, then we’ll likely miss it.  

The busyness isn’t going to change, we’re going to have to.  

We might have to set off without knowing exactly what we’ll find, like wise men who travelled far.  Or we might have to loosen our grip on our livelihood, let go of some control, trust someone else to watch our precious sheep, like some shepherds did.  

We might have to gather round, even if it’s just some barn animals and us—even all the wayward parts of ourselves who come kicking and screaming and calling it a waste of time. 

We’ll likely have to be willing to let it be a little awkward.  To be okay with the silence, with not knowing what to say.  With the fact that who we find there might not be the messiah we had imagined, the kind who swoops in to fix it all in an instant.  We just might have to be okay with starting out as infants like He did, and letting our growth look like the messy, slow yield, steady and intimate long game God designed. 

We might even have to confront the truth that even if we brought Him the most precious commodities in all the world—gold, money, charisma, Bible knowledge, public service, frankincense or myrrh—he’d still just be longing for our hearts, and some of our time.

Honestly, I’m not really sure what that looks like. How or where it fits in exactly. But I’m not sure anyone who’s done it before us knew either. I imagine it started with the simple thought that they couldn’t afford not to. So they saddled up, took a deep breath, and set off into that silent night.