at least it wasn't 400 years of silence.

if you don't understand the hey girl phenomenon. don't worry neither does anyone. it's one of things that's hilarious for reasons no one can really articulate. but that's the beauty of it. :)

sometimes i talk too much.
sometimes i hear myself rambling on and my own eyes glass over and i secretly hope somebody comes and interrupts me. or passes me a drink. or spills something on me. ... just so i can be quiet.
i don't always have a conversation exit strategy and i'm not particularly comfortable with silence.
i felt the silence hot and heavy every day past 6 of no new posts here in this little space.
did you?
follower number 82 did.
they left today.
that's okay.. i totally understand. i really do.
i mean hello--- i have not shown one festive advent craft in 3 weeks?!
no pictures of all the comings and goings and ramblings.
nothing.
silence.


it is uncomfortable.


i have been pondering silence lately.
specifically a 400 year old hush that covered the earth some 2000 years ago.
400 years of nary a word from God.
no angels, no prophets, no i'll be back in about 400 years just hang on till then.
malachi lays his pen down and then we wait.
kings change, nations fall, the world spins on and yet the God of the universe stops speaking to his people.


i've been thinking about what that would feel like.
your parents never heard God. your grandparents. your friends. there are old books saying he will come back...but how long do you hold out hope that you are not forgotten?


i think of how fast i turn that page. that 400 years is as thin as paper between my fingertips.


but sometimes i try to wait. i try to hold that millimeter moment and feel the uncomfortable pause... the generations holding their breath that then is exhaled with the cry of a baby.


He spoke.


the angel came. the baby cried.
Emmanuel.
God with us.


sometimes i think i may need more silence.
sometimes i think i am grasping at beautiful straws.
special traditions. meaningful moments. the perfect christmas picture.
sometimes i think i do, i say, i try too much.
i talk loud and clear over the silence.
i lean in too deep to the make it pretty and magical and it will be special camp.
if i just have the most meaningful advent discussions. if we can go christmas caroling and make christmas cookies and gingerbread houses and decorate the tree just right and get to every party and christmas program and say jesus is the reason for the season enough times... then surely it will be true.


like the too heavy glass ornament on the precarious low branch i am being turned and twisted over this truth.
I am His.
i don't break silence.
i don't make christmas.
He does.


perhaps that 400 years was not the absence of God...
perhaps it was how long it took for me to stop talking.


and i'm quiet now.