The Lamp Light and the Snowflake
Seeing your holiday season through the truth that it all belongs to God. Every plan. Every moment. Every breath.
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Psalm 24:1–2
1 The earth is the LORD ’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.
2 For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths.
We were in the thick of it.
Christmas 2024.
The kind of December that doesn’t just fill up, it takes over. One minute you’re flipping the calendar page, and the next, every square is scribbled with something… Final exams. Christmas programs. A volleyball party here, a Christmas parade there, and more shopping than I care to admit. I was doing what I always do: hauling, helping, hosting, handling all the things. We had the friend party, the work party, and Feliz Navidad… all inside our home. And honestly, that’s my joy. We built this house with people in mind. But trying to pull off all three in the same month? It nearly swallowed me whole.
And then came our yearly tradition, New York City at Christmas.
It sounds magical, doesn’t it? And honestly, it is. The lights, the windows on Fifth Avenue, the music echoing off buildings. The way Manhattan wraps itself in wonder this time of year, it’s undeniable.
And there’s always a part of me that thinks: This will be the year we slow down and soak it in. But this year, I wasn’t thinking that. I was dreading the trip.
I was worn out from the hustle. My family wanted the holiday magic, and I just wanted rest. But we did it, we went anyway. And the trip started out with more chaos than we had hoped. Lance and Noah left their checked bags at the house. We had a volleyball team dinner the night before, and somewhere in the blur of trying to do it all, I left my debit card at the restaurant. I realized it at four a.m. on the way to the airport.
We showed up in the city and it was raining. The kind of cold that cuts straight through your coat… except Lance and Noah didn’t have theirs. We needed to buy coats and shoes just to get through the trip. And from there, it didn’t really slow down.
We ran hard. Ducked into stores. Hunted down the right sneakers. Argued over how many blocks we’d walk. Snapped a thousand photos. Bought more stuff. Ate lots of great food. Laughed a lot. But it was noisy laughter…hurried and heavy with the weight of it all.
Until that one night.
We had just left a little café near the edge of Central Park, warm drinks in hand, noses pink from the cold. The kids were buzzing about something, probably snacks or subway directions or which line we still hadn’t checked off. I was somewhere in between joy and exhaustion, trying to keep the moment together while feeling like I was barely holding on.
And then it started to snow.
Not the kind you notice right away. It was night, and Central Park was dim, just dark enough that you couldn’t see much until you walked under the next streetlamp. But then there it was. The flakes. Floating.
Not falling, not rushing. Just drifting. Suspended.
Like the sky was holding its breath.
I looked up and time stopped. It didn’t slow down. It stopped.
There wasn’t music. There wasn’t a chorus of angels. There wasn’t even quiet. My kids were still talking and walking up ahead. The city was still humming around us. But in that split second, I saw something that silenced me. Not because it was loud, but because it was holy.
Snowflakes catching light in the dark.
And right there, in the middle of a city that never slows down, I felt the whisper:
This is what I want you to notice. I’m here. In the noise. In the lists. In the chaos. But hush will only come when your heart finally looks up.
Making Room for Awe
That quiet second under the streetlamp didn’t change my circumstances, but it changed my posture. It turned my eyes from everything I was trying to carry… to the God who already holds it all. And that is exactly where Psalm 24 begins.
“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.
The world and all its people belong to Him.”
Psalm 24 is a psalm of welcoming God’s presence. But David doesn’t start with instructions. He starts with ownership. Before we talk about making room for Jesus… we have to remember it’s His room.
God didn’t just create the world and walk away. He holds it. Sustains it. Everything. Your house. Your schedule. Your December. The gatherings you host. The ones you can’t get to. The moments that feel magical and the moments that feel like too much.
If He owns it, He carries it. If He carries it, you don’t have to. And verse 2 makes that truth even stronger.
“For He laid the earth’s foundation on the seas
and built it on the ocean depths.”
It’s a picture of stability… from a God who builds on what looks unstable.
The seas move. The depths shift. Yet He sets the world firmly in place.
Our lives feels like that sometimes… unsteady, shifting, unpredictable. But the God who founded the world on water holds it all together.
Psalm 24 pulls your heart back into alignment:
You’re not the one propping up this season.
You’re not the one holding everything together.
You’re living inside the care of the God who owns it all.
Awe begins right there.
Not in silence or slowness, but in remembering who is King.
That snowy streetlamp moment wasn’t a cute New York memory.
It was a holy interruption. A hush that settled over my hurried heart when I looked up and remembered: The earth is the Lord’s. And I’m standing on His ground.
So, as we prepare our hearts for December, let’s remember that the antidote to overload isn’t escape…it’s awe. Not retreating from life but reorienting your heart within it. Letting the holiness of God interrupt your need to hold everything together.
Because peace doesn’t appear when your schedule clears.
It appears when your heart bows.
The Reset
That moment in Central Park wasn’t just spectacular. It was sacred.
God met me in the middle of it all…wet socks, noise and all.
And He’ll meet you, too.
He’ll meet you right in the middle of the shopping trips, the school programs, the kitchen mess, the Christmas clutter, the late-night wrapping, the holiday pressure… all the places December gets loud.
All you have to do is look up.
This week’s freebie is one you don’t want to skip.
Each week of the Make Room Advent series comes with a Heartwork page. It’s simple, rich, and meant to meet you right in the middle of December. These are the kind of pages you keep, screenshot, tuck in your Bible, and come back to when the season gets loud.
You can grab this week’s Heartwork page, Ownership & Awe, inside the Reset Room.
If you’re not in yet, it’s free to join and you’ll get immediate access.
Until next week, keep living, learning, and seeing it all through the lens of His Grace.
Jessica Lee
HER VIEW OF HIS GRACE 
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