The Space Between

Tonight, I stood in my living room and just… looked.

No Christmas tree glowing in the corner.
No soft lights catching the snow outside the window.
No garland winding its way down the stairs.

Just an empty room.

It’s only a few days after Christmas, yet it already feels like it never even happened. And somehow, that makes the quiet louder.

Christmas comes in a rush, anticipation, preparation, gathering, tradition. We spend weeks leaning toward it, counting down, waiting for something holy and familiar to arrive. And then suddenly… it’s over. The music fades. The calendar flips. Life resumes.

And here I am, standing in the in-between.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1

I think we don’t talk enough about the after.

The moments when the decorations come down before our hearts are ready. When the joy was real, but fleeting. When we’re grateful, and still feel a strange sense of loss.

There’s something tender about realizing that something meaningful has passed… and yet feeling like it never fully landed.

The room is empty, but my heart is full of questions.

Did I soak it in enough?
Did I miss something?
Was this season everything it was supposed to be?

And then there’s the realization that time keeps moving whether we feel ready or not.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
— Hebrews 13:8

The lights are gone, but He isn’t.

This space, between Christmas and what comes next, feels thin. Quiet. Honest.

It reminds me that God does some of His deepest work not in the celebrations, but in the stillness after them.

After the shepherds returned to their fields.
After the wise men went home another way.
After Mary tucked the wonder into her heart and carried on with ordinary life.

Christmas was never meant to be the end of the story.

It was the beginning.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
— John 1:5

Even when the lights come down, the Light remains.

As I stand here, between 2025 and 2026, I feel that same tension.

One year closing.
Another opening.
Both holding weight.

There are things I’m proud of from this past year. Things I’m still grieving. Prayers that were answered, and others that remain open-handed and unfinished.

And yet, God is not bound by calendar years.

He is still writing. Still building. Still redeeming.

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
— Isaiah 43:19

Maybe this empty room isn’t empty at all.

Maybe it’s making space.

What if this quiet isn’t something to rush through, but something to honor?

What if the absence of lights is an invitation to notice the glow that doesn’t depend on decorations?

What if the end of one season is simply God clearing the room for what’s next?

So tonight, I’ll let the room be bare.
I’ll let Christmas rest where it belongs, in gratitude, not grasping.
I’ll let the year end without forcing a resolution.

And I’ll step into what’s coming with open hands.

Because the same God who came in the stillness of a stable is with me in the stillness of this living room.

And that feels like enough to begin again.