It was a few years ago after I began attending St. Bartholomew’s in Nashville where Advent really took a hold on my heart: a time to prepare and reflect upon the coming Christ, his birth, death and resurrection, the narrative of Mary and Joseph, angels, dirt, mundane, pain, rejoicing.
Over time, I’ve written a few blog posts inspired by the season or on Christmas in general. Because as mystical and ponderous Advent is, the holiday season is hard for many people.
Family and travel and money and parties and finals and bad weather and schedules and so…many…things that distract and hurt and remind us of a broken world, not a healed one.
This year, I’ve compiled a couple old blog posts with a few other reflections (if you received my Advent emails last year, those too) and made a little eBook.
And it’s free. Just head over to Noisetrade and download it. Please share it with your friends, your family. Study it by yourself or with a group of people. Print off a million copies of it and give it to anyone you think could find it helpful. It’s yours.
It’s my prayer that by taking just a couple of minutes each day as we approach Christmas to stop and breathe and pray and hope and to know we aren’t alone in this hard and holy season, we can live vulnerably in the dualities of joy and sadness and pain and peace.
Those tensions have been lived and wrestled in since the beginning of time but in this season we know the most beautiful moment is in our rest.
And we can rest and know we are loved and can love, we can rest in knowing hope and holiness, and we can rest knowing our Savior has come (and is here, now).
Comments
6 responses to “Free Devotional: Surviving Christmas: Advent Devotions for the Hard and Holy Holidays”
That’s such a clever idea to compile your writings into an advent book for us. In this world, we need all the help we can get to make sure our holiday spirit is coming from the Holy Spirit. Thanks, Anne!
Holiday from the holy…i love that. Thank you!
I’m downloading and can’t wait to read it. I’ve let a lot of hard things hide the Holy things of Christmas in the past. I want this year to be different.
Praying this Christmas He delights you in a million ways!
[…] taken from Surviving Christmas, a devotional Ebook published by my friend, author Anne Miller (link). Anne is a fun, quirky author who draws from her personal experiences to write in a refreshingly […]
[…] today I was perusing an advent devotional that Anne Marie Miller generously gave out for free (snag your copy right here – trust me – you will be glad you did). I am not sure why it took me so long to dig deeply […]