We prepare in Advent not just for Christ’s coming but also for his returning. We say in the creed every week that it’s this event we await so joyfully. Life is all about how we will cope with endings—not just the end of life but the end of childhood, the end of a relationship, the end of good health. How we say good-bye matters more than how we say hello. Jesus wants us to view endings not with fear and sadness but with a sense of opportunity: will this ending bring me one step closer to fulfillment, completion, and bountiful harvest?
—Excerpted from 2016: A Book of Grace-Filled Days by Jessica Mesman Griffith
The 2018 edition of A Book of Grace-Filled Days is now available.
