{Rooted}

It's 6 days til Christmas, or so the makeshift calendar tells me, the one Fiona wrote out and Jonah consults each morning. It's afternoon now. Lemon bars are baking for a party later on and the dishwasher hums away in the kitchen. My two baby/toddlers are upstairs blessedly napping. Outside the big kids and a neighbor child, home for break, are fighting an epic battle of some sort. Inside its still, it's quiet, it's restful. I've got a basket-full of unfinished knitting projects at my feet. It feels, for a moment, like Advent.

Sure, there are things I have left to do in these fast fleeting days before Christmas, but with just one car and a husband at work, for the moment I'm only able to be just here, rooted in the restful now. Despite being a hard year, somehow this Advent seems the most peaceful I've ever known. I think it may come from a certain amount of acceptance and gratitude for just this. I know perhaps better now than ever before that even if my list doesn't get completely checked off, even if I somehow don't manage to pack it all in - Christmas will come just the same. That endless striving and inevitable burnout is all for nothing because nothing can make Christmas more than it already is on it's own.

Today I read this article about Christian refugees in tent camps preparing to celebrate Christmas. The pictures speak much more than the words do, and reaffirmed my thinking. Even in the absence of all we think we need to have a perfect holiday - the warmth and happiness of home, the closeness of family, the assurances of tomorrow - Christmas still comes. Christ still comes. The one thing that still roots us, firm - that never lets go. There will always be a reason to celebrate, always a reason for Joy - because He is always and forever. Even if everything that we think we need for it to truly be Christmas was stripped away - He remains.

I'm thankful today for the warmth of home, the voices of my happy and healthy children, our little tree and the celebrations we share with family and friends. We have an abundance beyond our needs and that is truly a blessing. But more than anything, I'm so, so thankful that my heart is rooted securely and eternally with Him, the source of pure joy.

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