I first read this quote in Ann Voskamp’s The Greatest Gift devotional.
It makes me think of a cold, wintry, and silent December night. The kind you see on Christmas cards – quaint villages filled with cottages with yellow light shining through every window and plumes of gray smoke billowing out of chimneys. An old-fashioned white country church with wreaths on the double door entrance is located by the town square.
The scene harkens back to a time when the world valued the meaning of season and waited with great anticipation for Christmas morn.
That is what I see in my mind when I read this quote.
In the silence of a midwinter dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen.
You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart.
The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.
Frederick Buechner — frederickbuechner.com
Bio: Michele Kearns is the founder and HUG© (Hope Unites Globally) Award-Winner of JoyReturns. She shares her widowhood adventures hoping to inspire widows to move through grief and rebuild their lives. A graduate of Kent State University with a Bachelor’s degree in communications, she’s currently using those skills as a virtual logistics contact center representative for a Fortune 100 company. She’s also managed call center teams, co-facilitated a grief support group, and helped small businesses with various writing assignments. Michele is a bookworm, and a lover of history, music, chocolate, red roses, and golden retrievers. She is also the amateur photographer behind the blog OgleOhio.com.
JoyReturns 