In a Hurry for the Holidays
Craving What My Soul Needs From Advent
O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.
I don’t know if I’ve ever craved the holiday season like I crave it this year.
I had my tree up and decorated four days before Thanksgiving. The Advent candles have been sitting there, unlit, for a whole week, waiting for Advent to begin. I think the kids have already made (and consumed) around 5 dozen frosted Christmas cookies, and it’s not even December yet!
Considering the fact that I’m a major procrastinator, my husband had to ask what has come over me. Why the hurry? Why was it so important to me to get that tree up last week?
To be honest, it’s not the smell of the fresh tree, the pretty lights, or the tasty cookies that I crave this year. Those things are nice, but what I really needed from that Christmas tree was PERMISSION.
Permission to Draw Near
I needed permission to begin my annual December quiet time tradition: an hour alone every dark morning of December, sitting near the tree, candles lit, a steaming cup of special holiday tea in my hand.
Each year I choose a special Advent devotional, like this one, and allow myself to linger over every word, filling up a whole notebook page each day with Scriptures and thoughts and prayers that flow from the day’s reading.
Craving that special holiday quiet time is what really motivated me to put up the tree.
Permission to Take a Break
I needed permission to change up my school routine with the kids, taking some time off from our regular routines to just enjoy a good book together, or bake, or just not do math today.
The Christmas tree stands in my family room as a blazing symbol that something is different, that this is not a day for business as usual in the Choe household.
It tells me for this short season it’s okay to relax the routine a little, or do something special (like learning to crochet with my 15 year old). It signals it’s time for a change, which we all desperately need after working so hard for the last three months.
I really needed permission this year to take a holiday from all my normal routines.
Permission to Let it Flow
As it turns out, I also needed permission to write.
As I looked for a new devotional to use for my Advent quiet time, I kept returning again and again to the book of Luke. Twenty-four chapters at one a day sounds like the perfect Advent read to me.
And with permission to linger and permission to relax the routine a little, that Advent reading is spilling over into a wonderful writing project, a book of Advent devotions through the book of Luke.
I won’t blog those devotions daily this year. To add a daily deadline would defeat the purpose of this season and rob me of that special time in the secret place I crave. It would go against the whole reason I was in a hurry to put up that silly tree.
What I really needed from Advent was simply PERMISSION.
Yes, I’m in a hurry for Advent this year. I’m in a hurry for a change, for dark mornings by the tree with my Savior, for cuddles on the couch with the kids, and for the ability to just watch and see what the Lord will give me today in his Word.
May this holiday season give you permission to hurry up and take whatever your soul is craving from the Father’s hand. Maybe it’s a special Advent tradition, or time with those you love. Maybe it’s just permission to be still.
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