Looking Back On Christmas

In one of Shauna Niequist's books, I think it was Bittersweet she talks about thin places.  Those spaces  in our life where the distance between our world and the heavenly world seems to close a bit.  Like Christmas.

Here is an excerpt:

"Thin places: places where the boundary between the divine world and the human world becomes almost nonexistent, and the two, divine and human, can for a moment, dance together uninterrupted.  Some are physical places, and some aren't places at all, but states of being or circumstances or a season. 

There are years when the Christmas spirit is hard to come by, and it's in those seasons when I'm thankful for Advent.  Consider it a beautiful way of being present to this season.  Give up for a while your false and failing attempts at merriment, and thank God for thin places, and for Advent, for a season that understands longing and loneliness and long nights.  Let yourself fall open to Advent, to anticipation, to belief that what is empty will be filled, what is broken will be repaired, and what is lost can always be found, no matter how many times it's been lost.

Christmas is a think place, a season during which even the hardest-hearted of people think about what matters, when even the most locked-up people loosen their grasps for just a moment, in the face of the deep beauty and hope of Christmas.  The shimmer of God's presence, not always plainly visible in our world, is more visible at Christmas.
For some people, this Christmas is, if I can stretch the phrase, doubly think.  Maybe it's the first Christmas without a family member or a dear friend, and your heart has been so wholly battered that it allows God's presence and voice to seem into it at every turn."

I think she quite accurately describes my thoughts and feelings at this post Christmas moment.  I have been especially quiet. Unusually quiet.  Not just in writing, but here too.  Trying desperately to hear from God, my ears straining to hear his direction in my life.

And hoping that in this thin space it will be sharp and clear.