A few weeks ago I sent you a poem about small steps and ordinary faithfulness. Today I want to share something that grew from the same place.
When the Light Draws Near is an Advent devotional I have been writing for the past year. It is a five-week journey — through waiting, making room, receiving joy, holding the light in tender places, and carrying it into the new year when the decorations come down, and ordinary life resumes.
It is not a book about having a perfect Christmas. It is more like a companion for the season as it actually arrives — with its beauty and its weight, its traditions and its absences, its moments of grace and its unfinished places.
Each day includes a short reflection, two questions for prayer or journaling, and a closing prayer. You can read one entry a day or move more slowly. There is no need to hurry. Advent itself teaches us that holy things often arrive slowly.
The book is available now on Amazon.
If you know someone who might find it meaningful — a friend carrying something heavy into December, a small group looking for a shared Advent practice, someone who loves Christmas but sometimes feels the distance between the season they hoped for and the one they received — I would be grateful if you passed it along.
Thank you for being here in these early days of this newsletter. It means more than you know to send these words out and trust that they will find the people who need them.
Tom
P.S. The book includes a five-week structure that follows Advent through the new year — so even if someone picks it up mid-December, Week Five carries them into January. It was written to be useful past Christmas Day.