Third Tuesday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
Re-Wilding
by Rachel Pipher
Welcome to this place outside where you were told the Light lived.
Welcome to a place of fear-filled change, mighty rest, or rebellious hope.
Soak in the rays of life, unmeasured and crashing, drenching you in the warmth of knowledge that, even here, you are greeted by Peace.
Having pulled yourself out of the mud, you set your roots in this wide open space.
Here, peeled from all the normal, calloused, deafening certainties, invite healing afresh from the source of all Love.
This Advent, stake your hope on the truth that there will be life, springtime, light beside and beyond the depths of winter’s death. In the coming days, despite what we’ve known and what has ended, we hold onto the hope of defiantly new life.
Let yourself believe that seasons of rest are part of the work of restoring our vision of bridge-building for the outcast and witnessing ever-flowing streams in the desert.
These poems from my first collection called ‘re-wilding’ feature the turning point in a chapter of exile where you gather enough belief to hang your heart on hope again. That moment when you start digging into the earth to plant your hope-seeds, agreeing with the promise that restored, to-the-fullest, fresh-flower life is still ahead.
Re-wilding is a 5-part series that takes the reader on the journey of hopeful deconstruction. While acknowledging the initial pain and disorientation of letting go in ‘unearthed’, it follows with a permission-giving section that says to abandon any performance and let your field lie “fallow.” Then, mirroring the awakening of springtime, and just like when grief’s hold allows for gasps of light, the following 3 sections unpack the tiny “seeds" of hope we find ourselves holding, the rebellious “rooting” for embedded and integrated life we were made for, finishing with the dizzying delight of seeing “new life” grow against all odds.
And isn’t that what this journey of Advent is? Finding ourselves holding tiny seeds of hope with front-row seats to unstoppable, uproarious life taking hold where we wouldn’t expect it?
Welcome to the place you are. May you be surprised by the promise of life-brimming hope today.
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