A poem and a song

I've walked around all day with a heaviness in my heart. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but I just felt off. It's a rainy day, but certain errands needed to be done and it was one of those days where everything took longer then I thought it should; which it turn causes my patience to become shorter, shorter...short.

Ugh.

I had been dragging my feet all afternoon over the tasks I needed to accomplish and didn't feel much like making an effort to have a quiet time. But I knew I needed to- I always need to! So I did something I haven't done in far too long; poetry and music. I laid down on the couch, turned on my new favorite Christmas music and read some selected poems from "Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings" by Madeleine L'Engle. Her writings are like old friends and I read through several short poems before the tears came. I laid there, in the moment; just being.

Being still. Being quiet. Being broken. Being open and available to whatever the Lord had for me.

"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" was the soundtrack for the moment and the tears flowed without me understanding why. And they just kept coming. In those moments, there was a release of things I didn't know I was holding on to and a filling of His peace that I knew I was missing. I've tried so hard to enjoy this celebration of Advent the last week. I've made every effort to be in the moment, not trying to create the perfect one. But today the Lord knew I needed something more. And He met me right where I was at, and let me just be.

"The ordinary so extraordinary"



He came, quietly impossible,

Out of a young girl's womb,

A love as amazingly marvelous

As his bursting from the tomb.



This child was fully human,

This child was wholly God.

The hands of All Love fashioned him

Of mortal flesh and bone and blood,



The ordinary so extraordinary

The stars shook in the sky

As the Lord of all the universe

Was born to live, to love, to die.



He came, quietly impossible:

Nothing will ever be the same:

Jesus, the Light of every heart-

The God we know by Name.



-Madeleine L'Engle-