Last Christmas Eve, I sat in a church service in a huge old church. Surrounded by stained glass, candles, pews, the sound of an organ playing, the soft hymns drifting through the sanctuary. This is normally my favorite night of the whole year – when anything is possible.

The night before something is like a blank check for the next day. You can fill in whatever you like in your mind. All the excitement, expectation, what you think it will be – that image can be untainted in your mind that night.

But the light of day changes things.

Nothing is quite as idealistic as you want it to be. People still wake up and cry. They poop and they fight, and they need fed just like on all the other days. Partners get let down by each other and families talk politics. But the night before there is a stillness.

I sat in the stillness in my pew, and I wondered about all those things – what was, what was to come, what is now. A wave of doubt hit me. An existential crisis that I’m not sure I’ve fully gotten out from under. What always was a beautiful and somewhat mystic story to me took on a different form. I started to wonder if this was even possible – the angels and the singing and the divine being impregnating a human.

I felt the need to know. And right behind that feeling, I felt the need to let go.

To let go of what I thought the next day would bring. To let go of where I thought I was fitting into religion but still wasn’t quite. To let go of always needing to know exactly what happened and what I should believe in.

As the year went on, I felt this continual tension. I wanted to believe in wonder, in miracles, in anything that could be possible. And yet, the grit of life and the grime of how imperfect it is weighed on my mind constantly. I dragged this crisis with me, probably letting it taint me a little bit, leaving me a little more jaded than I would like.

But unlike other times in my life, I wasn’t afraid of the questions. I leaned into them.

It’s hard to believe a whole year has passed and, in some ways, I feel like I know much more and in other ways much less by now. As this December crept towards me, I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to feel. I wasn’t part of a church, and our families weren’t gathering together as they normally would.

What is Christmas outside of church and family? Where does the wonder truly lie?

I thought back to my somewhat tumultuous relationship with church and religion – how dependent I had been on the institution to keep me connected to my spirituality and to the Divine. I thought about how that all had fallen apart at different times, and at some point I had stopped trying. But I never stopped trying to connect to those parts of me. I just had to find them for myself.

I found the Divine in the outdoors, in the peace in my house, in the changes in my heart. I noticed the things around me I couldn’t directly explain with reason, the things that still made me somewhat of a mystic – what helped me always believe in something bigger and a little more magical than what I could see and feel. And I leaned into it.

Just like on Christmas Eve, what I have expected out of life and my journey has always been a shiny idea I have held tightly, always kicking it out a little further into the future. I didn’t want the light of day to ruin it. I didn’t want to deal with the grime and the fights and the ugly parts. Those didn’t seem like “the dream” for me. And yet, if I listen, I am living right inside it, right now.

I have had to find the Divine on my own this Christmas season – in the unexpected places. I found peace and wonder in the lights, the music, the way my daughter said, “Christmas tree!!” fifteen times in a row when she woke up from her nap to find the house lightly decorated in magic. I found joy in planning gifts for those I love the most and making the holiday foods for my kids that feel like tradition to them now. I leaned into love and light as I realized that now I was the one creating a festive home and enjoying it with my people. No longer a shell of a person, I was here, present, in the now.

What we are looking for isn’t always found in the obvious places. The wonder of it all is that the kingdom is here, within us. We don’t have to create anything to find it, we simply have to lean into it, quiet ourselves for just a moment, and breathe it in.

Let the unexpected wow you. The wonder of it all is that it is here, in and around us, just waiting to be felt, to be realized, to be welcomed in.