For the season of Advent this year, the theme for our children’s programming is based on a devotion book called All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings, written by Gayle Boss and illustrated by Sharon Spitz. The watercolors in the children’s version are gorgeous, though there is also a “grownup” version with longer written reflections. A different woodland critter is highlighted for each day of Advent, offering a glimpse of their time of preparation and hibernation in the season of winter when temperatures are cold, darkness lengthens, and food is scarce. Each adapts and responds to the growing darkness and cold in different ways.
In the preparations of nature, we see parallels to the season of Advent, a time of waiting, longing, and preparation for Jesus’ arrival at Christmas, and his return at the end of time. Each page of the devotion book ends with the same refrain: “The dark is not an end. It’s a door. It’s the way a new beginning comes.”
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| Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash |
Perhaps you find yourself in a “winter” in your own life - a time of transition, of darkness, of waiting, of hunkering down. It may be that you’re recovering from illness or surgery, and things aren’t moving as quickly as you’d like, and you feel frustrated and stuck. It may be that you’re grieving - the loss of a loved one, or a part of your identity, or a relationship - and everything feels stark and numb and uncertain. It may be that you’re at a transition point, and it’s not yet clear what comes next.
These times of waiting are hard! The darkness can feel disorienting and punishing and overwhelming; it can leave us longing for resolution, for comfort, for a clear way forward. Our patience wears thin, our weariness feels like a heavy blanket. Perhaps the devotion book’s refrain can be ours, too - “The dark is not an end. It’s a door. It’s the way a new beginning comes.”
Though these seasons of darkness and waiting can sometimes feel like burdens, there is also goodness in the darkness; both things are true. Darkness provides space for rest, for growth, for protection. In the darkness, the smallest glimmers of light are more visible. As Gayle Boss writes in the introduction to the adult version of All Creation Waits, “I wanted my little boy, opening each door, to sense that Advent is about darkness – and hope, fear – and hope, loss – and hope.”
The good news in these wintery times is that we are not alone. The same Holy Spirit who moved over the darkness and chaos at creation breathes light and life into you, too. The shepherd who leads and guides through the valley of the shadow of death accompanies you through dark valleys also. In this season and at all times, we place our hope in the one who never leaves us, the one who makes all things new, trusting that there is a new beginning for us, too.
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