Be Still

Carol Sbordon Bannon offers encouragement to welcome the stillness and emptiness of the winter season, and fill your soul with God's Word.

I love these days of winter. Our home is empty from all the holiday wrappings and knick-knacks. Cupboards have been restored to their boring nutritional everyday-ness. Gone are the sugary sweets and delectable pastries. Instead, we once again have only the food necessary to sustain us, and if lucky, aid in the reduction of a few holiday pounds. All the twinkling white lights illuminating dark corners are now stowed safely away. The *items* previously put away to make room for Christmas are still in their boxes because I am not ready to let go of the emptiness that now is.

I welcome the stillness of spirit this emptiness around me brings.

This need for being still is not new to this year. It began a long time ago as a counter to the frenzied pace I set during the holiday season. I grew up in a home where December was often synonymous with sadness. When I was eight years old, two weeks before Christmas, my grandmother had a massive fatal coronary. Something within my mother, who was raising six young children at thirty-six years old, went dark. In later years, in the same month, she would end up burying her sister, father, aunt, uncle, and cousin. As she herself grew older, my mother often dreaded December’s approach. Her pain, at times, was palpable; I can to this day see her quietly staring at her family photographs when she thought no one was watching. So I learned to put on a happy face for her and my own family, filling the days with parties, activities, music, and lots of distractions.

And then she, too, was gone. Only now can I fully understand the strength of character, her deep faith in God. To the end she believed everything happens according to His Plan … she may not like it, she often said, but she believed His plan was the way it had to be.

As my sister says: His will, His way, His time.

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Now, the barrenness of my January home helps me slow down. I allow myself the luxury to look deep, to cry tears without sadness or remorse. In the early-morning hours, before the day begins, I contemplate buried feelings and thoughts … the good, the bad. Those moments of sadness endured when I felt Him sitting next to me, the disappointments over as-yet-unanswered prayers which I know He hears and will one day answer, the frustrations of days not long enough to accomplish all I want to do, praying it is what He wants me to do. And, most important of all?

I take time to remember and give thanks for all I can do because of Him, those moments He guided me through when I thought the task was impossible. The joy-filled moments spent alive in His Love.

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Embrace the emptiness of winter. Use this time to fill your soul with God’s Word. #CatholicMom

Before I allow myself to once again decorate my home and shelves with cherished items (or as my sister calls them, *trinkets and trash*), I need time to take stock of where I stand with God. I need to revisit and renew promises made to Him throughout my life. Between now and Ash Wednesday, I need to walk as one of His Apostles, listening to His Words. I want to use these coming weeks to be quiet, to remember, and to feel.

One verse truly sums up the winter months for me:

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:11)

Embrace the emptiness of winter. Use this time to fill your soul with God’s Word. Follow Christ and His Apostles on their road to Jerusalem. Use the solitude of winter to create within your family a sense of quiet and peace, a peace made known through the love of God for us.

Give to God a silence within, and He will fill you and your family with His Grace.

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