Coming up for air



I have never been diving but, at the moment, I feel like a deep-sea diver, who has spent a reasonable amount of time under pressure in the deep - I am slowly resurfacing, taking time to get used to normality again and thinking of the wonders that I have just experienced.

I knew that Advent and Christmas time would be busy in this new life of mine but nothing had completely prepared me for the extent of the stretch and the sense of eyeball-bulging tiredness that would be the result.

I left for a week-long college residential just as Advent was starting and, thanks to the shortest-possible Advent (what with Christmas Eve actually being the 4th Sunday in Advent), came back to full-swing preparations for Christmas services and events. Since then it has been a rollercoaster ride of services, school assemblies and carol services, community and churches-together events, whilst trying to organise family things and plan ahead for next term!

By the time I got to lunchtime on Christmas Day, I knew what it was to be richly blessed and at 0% battery life all at the same time.

I have spent the last 2 or 3 days quietly reflecting on and off about all that I have felt and experienced through the busyness of the season. As I come up for air, I realise that whilst there is a mild case of the "bends" going on, I have received so much more than I have given out. 

I have experienced wonders.....
Like the brilliantly game scratch choir having a go at all kinds of events and venues.
Like the adults with severe disabilities joining in with Christmas carols at a community lunch.
Like an amazing elderly woman at a care home reciting from memory all the words of the communion service and the carols we sang there and glowing with sheer joy as she did so.
Like 650 adults and children (count 'em!) coming to church across two Christingle services on Christmas Eve.
Like two of my fabulous choristers having the confidence to take on big solos at short notice on the Midnight Communion service.

I have loved being a little part in all of these and so many more precious moments.

And, far from becoming jaded and bored with the words we have sung and the scripture we have heard so many times in the last few weeks (something I had been a bit bothered about), I have found what I often find with liturgy and song and scripture that is repeated - it starts to jump out at you in new and powerful ways.

All through Advent, I have been struck afresh by the extraordinary nature of the Christmas story - God breaking through in to our timeline, in to our history, and coming to earth as a baby, growing up and walking around on earth but always with our salvation as his purpose. It's a story of amazing grace and I have felt this so strongly this year.

So, on Christmas morning, when I sang, for the zillioneth time this year (let alone throughout my lifetime), Hark the Herald Angels Sing, I found myself singing with tears streaming down my face when I got to these familiar but suddenly new and extraordinary words:

"Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die."

Just wonders. Grace and wonders. And I am grateful for all of it.

Happy Christmas.

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