December 19th

“On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
   Do not fear, O Zion;
   not let your hands grow weak.” Zephaniah 3:16

“do not fear”—
how many ways,
how many times
have you encouraged us,
dear, dear God,
not as an order to be obeyed
but a whispered promise
into our trembling lives
in this season when our legs
lock up from waiting so long,
we teach our hearts that
ancient language of caution
to which you respond not with words,
but music hummed in our ears.
for this is not a season
for fixing everything. Advent
simply arrives and then stays
right there in the middle
of all our fears, refusing to leave
so we might realize that hope
is holding our weakening grip,
that you are not looking
from a galaxy far, far away
but here, in those elbows
we bump in the stores,
there in the wide eyes
of excited children,
there in that future we have
already plotted out so carefully,
and rewriting it with your
faithfulness.

(c) 2025 Thom M. Shuman

Venmo: @Thom Shuman