While We Recover
on the other side of the waiting
Here we are — the day after New Year’s Day. The holiday hustle gives way to a tired hush in the dawn of a new year.
Throughout Advent, I waited and watched and wondered and worshiped through poetry, the only authentic container for all that my heart was pondering. (You can catch the final Advent poetry post here.)
Perhaps you’ve been reading along, your own heart beating a little out of rhythm, a little tender from whatever this year has held.
Perhaps you’ve been caught up in the whirlwind of seasonal performance and you’re now trying to catch up to yourself as you sit in a discarded pile of bows and confetti.
Perhaps you’ve taken a break because poetry just isn’t your thing.
Wherever you find yourself in the aftermath of the holidays, welcome. You’re more than the sum of your efforts and unfulfilled longings. You’re safe. You’re seen.
Before the sun breaks fully forth over the new year’s horizon, God sits with us, stirring something rather sacred in this in-between space — an opportunity to recover, to linger, to pause, to simply receive.
And so I invite you to linger with me in this space, to recover from what has been and to open our hands to what will be.
Here are a few simple prompts to help us do just that; you’ll find my own brief responses offered up below.
A Memory — the front-row seat at my middle daughter’s wedding
A Book — Take My Hand (Dolen Perkins-Valdez)
A Gratitude — celebrating thirty years of marriage to my best friend
A Regret — wasting untold time in front of all varieties of screens but especially my phone
A Hope — to walk at least a portion of El Camino de Santiago while in Spain this spring
The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
~ Lamentations 3:22-23, NLT
Feel free to comment with your own simple responses to these prompts. I’d love to hear from you! Here’s to recovering . . .
Until next time,
Kerry