Somehow, I missed winter solstice this year. I like to mark these things, but I’d been wrapped up in work on our home after Florence, so it passed silently by me. The next day, I realized it in the early evening, as we left a building store. We’d been there for probably three hours and while inside, it had grown dark. As we walked back to our vehicle, something about the gray-black sky broken by the surrounding streetlights reminded me. I thought about how the darkest day of the year was already gone, and how it would be 364 days before we’d know that much darkness again. For almost six months now, each day will be filled with more and more slivers of light, making each day brighter than the one that came before.
That’s my hope for us this year, that each day will be filled with more light than the one that preceded it. Be strong; take heart. There is much to anticipate, and this anticipation is a light of its own.
May your new year be light-filled. Happy 2019.