God, I am panic stricken today with all I have to do. I am overwhelmed and completely unable to focus on writing this letter. There are distractions in this building today that pop up every two minutes and there is just not enough time today to get this done. Maureen is practically hovering outside my door, waiting for my long overdo letter so that she can put the newsletter to bed. And in times like this, with the pressure on and a deadline to meet and all the other thing I have to do today, I can’t find the inspiration, and I am just not in the mood.
But, of course, I am not alone. So many of our lives are filled with a million things to do. At least that is how it often feels, especially as the Christmas season approaches. A million things. There is the job, of course, and there are presents to buy and decorating to do and meals to cook and the cleaning and the laundry and the tree and the leaves to rake and the dwindling bank account and the problem with the furnace and the dripping faucet and the leak in the basement and the kids and the aging parents and the winter coming too fast and on and on and on goes the list. All of our lists are different but they are also the same in that they are long and they make this season hectic and harried. And what happens when we feel busy and distracted and stressed with a million things to do? Eventually we tend to see nothing else. Life becomes jobs to do and things to cope with and whatever we see turns into a thing. The sparrow lying in the dust in the driveway—just a thing to be kicked out of the way, not the mystery of death. The yelling of children outside your window—just a distraction, an irrelevance, not life, not the most wonderful miracle of them all. A call from a half-forgotten seldom heard from friend—just something that takes up too much time, not an unlooked for gift. That whispering in the air that comes sudden and soft from nowhere—just the wind, just the wind, and not the voice of angels.
The million things that we have to do can overwhelm the spirit inside of us. They can make this magical season into a dreadful drudgery. But this is the kind of life, the kind of world, the kind of reality that the miracle always comes into. The birth of God’s grace always comes when we’re not looking for it, when we’re tending to other things, when we’ve left no room in our heads or our hearts. That is why this season is a miracle indeed.
God’s infant is born where no one expects it, where there is no room to be had, where the weather is all wrong, where no one is in the right mood, where life is hectic and harried and distracted and shallow, where no one is looking or listening or ready at all. That always seems to be the way it happens.
So as this holiday season comes, too soon, with too many demands, with too much left for us to do—trust it. Trust the miracle. Trust the grace of God. Trust it to find a way—a way to surprise you, to take you unawares, to bring you up short, to invade the business of your days and nights with wonder and warmth and grace unlooked for. It will happen.
God comes. The birth happens. Love is incarnate anew among us. The glow, the warmth, the beauty, will find us and touch us and transform our stressed-out routines with light and life and love. You will hear them sometime during this season of hope—the angel voices, high and wild in the night or deep and soft in the soul. You’ll hear them, for this is the season of the miracle of God and that miracle will come. Expect it.
