Thursday Thoughts - The Fastest & Slowest Year

A few years ago I wrote a sermon entitled "The Fastest Year" which was a take on a title of an episode of ER.  A character talks about how some years go by so fast and others seem to go so slow.  The time between Christmas Eve 2019 and 2020 has experienced both going so fast and yet so slow.

Joy - in Christmas Bows; Christmas Eve 2020

Obviously the one reason we can say this year has gone so slowly is due to COVID-19.  Being in a state of "pause" for so long made days blend together and time, at least for me, to go slowly.  In the midst of all this was, of course, our church merger which was also put on pause for 4 months.  After racing through Christmas Eve and the 2 1/2 months that followed, it seemed that things were going so fast...and then they stopped and went slow once again.

Christmas (and Christmas Eve) comes and goes each year.  The year starts and it seems so far away.  But then before you know it, it is here.

Last Christmas Eve was definitely an emotional one.  The last one in a place I had known for so long.  It seemed a bit strange because for most of the Christmas Eve's, we had been at a family gathering.  But the past two Christmas Eves, we were home so I attended church.  Singing Silent Night in the dark with candles really got to me.  There were tears while I looked at my candle, while I looked at my sister with her candle, and then all the candles around the sanctuary.  They didn't last long as we then closed with Joy to the World and my sister and I sang in great harmony together.

My candle; Christmas Eve 2019

All of a sudden, it is Christmas Eve again.  And it certainly has not been anything that I expected.  It came so quickly, yet it seems like it has been so long since I last celebrated the day, sang the songs, and saw the candles.

It has been a different experience already.  And one I have been very blessed by.  I am looking forward to the remaining services today, the one I am assisting with and the one I will be attending with my sister.

I was kind of apprehensive about today.  Not because of all the things I had left to do.  But because I wasn't sure how I would react to having a huge celebratory day at church in a church that in a way is still new to me (but in other ways, is not).  But I am so very glad God saw it fit for today to be the way it has to show me I had nothing to be apprehensive about.

Merry Christmas!