Make Room

It’s available as

• an almost free Kindle ebook,

• an inexpensive paperback book.

From the Preface:

Advent can be a strange season. The Church asks us to wait while everything around us seems to be telling us to hurry. There are presents to buy, gatherings to attend, meals to plan, and plenty of things that need to get done before Christmas arrives. Our schedules get crowded, our homes get crowded, and sometimes our hearts do too.

So this Advent, we are going to spend some time thinking about what it means to make room.

Making room may sound like one more thing to add to the list, but that is not the idea. Making room might actually mean doing less. It could mean being quiet long enough to listen. It might mean letting go of a plan that is not going the way we hoped. It could be making time for someone we might otherwise overlook or becoming a little more willing to welcome something unexpected.

The story of Advent is filled with people doing exactly that. Mary makes room for a calling she never expected. Joseph makes room for a future very different from the one he had imagined. Others wait, wonder, listen, welcome, and trust. None of them knows exactly how the story will unfold. They simply make room for God to work.

Over these twenty-five days, that is what we hope to do together. Each day gives us a short passage of Scripture and a reflection to help us notice where God might be asking for a little more room in our lives.

My hope and prayer is that by Christmas morning, we will realize something else: all along, God has been making room for us.

After all, that is the story we are preparing to celebrate. God came to be with us.

Let’s make room.