Today will be the last time I stand in line with my coworkers in the basement of the hospital to wait for our Christmas luncheon. The old cafeteria will be lit with Christmas lights and decorated with red bows. The executive team will be lined up and piling plates high with food. We’ll walk with our trays to the dining area and look around for a place to sit. And we will eat and talk and ask about each others' Christmas plans. Afterwards we’ll walk to a conference room to receive our Christmas mug and a handshake from the CEO, eat a dessert and drink some coffee and listen to the employee who volunteered to sing that day before heading back to the office.
Our team has diminished to the three of us, with only me being there full-time. This is how it works—coming in for a project and ramping up the team, finishing the project and saying goodbye one by one. I started this project as a hospital employee, my boss just having left, and me a department of one. And today I smile because I’m a department of one again, packing boxes, closing files, finishing those last to-do lists.
And so life circles back around and I pray that I have learned the lessons I was to learn here rather than circling back weaker than before. I feel at times that these moments are so long and drawn out and then that which never seemed to end is gone. Did I give thanks for the mundane tasks as well as the overwhelming joys? I think that is part of what Advent is all about: slowing down…drinking in these moments…listening to God speak through his Word… quieting our hearts.
12 more days…
♥
Is it too late to talk about making Christmas decorations? I cut out little birds from craft paper (paper bags work perfectly too), and we wrote what we’re thankful for on the front and back. Hole-punched them on top and strung them together as a garland around the house. We are blessed!
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