This week I found myself in a conversation about the liturgical calendar; why we follow it, why we mark seasons like Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and even the long stretch of Ordinary Time. It can seem like a peculiar rhythm to people outside the church. But the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the calendar is one of the best tools we have for faith formation. It shapes us slowly. It gives us language, patterns, and rituals that help us grow into the kind of people who can actually notice God in the world.

Our year begins with Advent, and Advent doesn’t start with celebration. It starts with honesty. It starts by naming that the world can be a really lousy place: chaotic, fearful, uneven, unfair. Advent doesn’t ask us to pretend everything is fine. It simply dares us to hold a candle in the dark and trust that the dark doesn’t get the final say.

That tiny flame, fragile as it is, teaches us something. When we start looking for hope, really looking, we begin to find it in unexpected places. And once hope finds a foothold in us, peace becomes possible. Not the peace of everything being easy, but the peace of knowing we don’t walk alone. With peace, our hearts loosen just enough to feel joy again. And joy, when we let it stretch us, prepares us to receive and give love.

This movement from hope to peace to joy to love is not accidental; it's intentional. It's formation. It is the slow work of learning to see God’s embodied presence in our lives in small kindnesses, in surprising courage, in communities that hold each other up, in moments when the holy breaks through the ordinary.

My wish for you this week, Reader, is that you’ll notice where the season is forming you. May you find a spark of hope in an unlikely corner, feel peace settling into your bones, discover joy you didn’t expect, and recognize love showing up in the ordinary moments of your life. May this season shape you gently but deeply, until you find yourself living the very story it tells: God is with us. That's the fiLLLed life.

Live a fiLLLed life, Melissa ​