I’m writing in a winter wonderland, pups beside me keeping me company as I type with snow-laden boughs outside my kitchen window. Five days of storm-gifted time. Four days of fog and grey. Four mornings at the pier without seeing the sun. And then this morning—color. Pink, purple, white, and blue promenading above still water after what felt like an eternity of monochrome.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Fog Before the Clearing

Friday morning, I drove to the pier through a chilling combination of sleet and snow, journaling in my car to stay warm while the world disappeared into grey. No sunrise to speak of—just mist swallowing the horizon. Saturday brought thick fog hugging the York River so closely I couldn’t tell where water ended and sky began. Sunday, darker still—the pier itself vanishing into nothingness, birds appearing and disappearing like thoughts I couldn’t quite grasp.

Four straight days of sunless sunrises. Four mornings of showing up to see… nothing.

I know this weather pattern. Not just outside my window, but inside my soul. The fog that rolls in and stays, obscuring everything that usually orients me. The grey that makes it impossible to tell where I end and the world begins. The clouds so thick that even though I know the sun still rises every morning, I can’t feel its warmth, can’t see its light, can’t remember what color looks like.

Grace in the Grey

But here’s what I’m learning: sometimes the most magical things happen when you can’t see the sun.

Friday night, while snow fell, Tony and I built a gingerbread mansion at his sister’s church. We had no blueprints, just a silent shared vision. He designed, I decorated. My niece Tessa abandoned her own creation to help us, selflessly adding lollipop trees to our candy yard. We didn’t even know it was a contest until five minutes before judging.

We won. Best Overall.

That ridiculous, joy-filled gingerbread mansion now sits on our dining room table—a little symbol that sometimes you build beautiful things even when you can’t see where you’re going.

The Weekend of Yes (Again)

Saturday: Joshua soup simmering while I talked to Mama Marci about Christmases past, present, and future. The soup I was making when she told me Joshua had died. Now the same soup, but different. Healing instead of heartbreak seasoning every spoonful.

Die Hard with Tony while Cali played video games at a friend’s (since she’s unconvinced that it’s a Christmas movie). My wintery Thomas Kinkade puzzle slowly taking shape. The Newport News tree lighting ceremony, me wrapped in Aunt Becky’s black cape, feeling Syracuse-cold in Virginia and not minding because Christmas always meant cold in childhood.

Sunday: The Advent service with Pastor Colin. Then Busch Gardens Christmas Town—an unexpected invitation from Tony’s sister. I almost said no. School night. Bedtime. Routine. But Mom’s voice echoed: “Stop worrying about the future. Be in the moment. Make holiday memories.”

Sitting on Tony’s lap at the outdoor ice skating show, past our bedtime, after the notification came: schools closed Monday. I felt relief first, then something else entirely.

Joy. Real joy. Not the kind you manufacture or talk yourself into. The kind that surprises you by showing up when you weren’t looking.

Monday’s Gift

The snow fell all day Monday. Real snow that stuck, that transformed our neighborhood into something from a Hallmark movie. After dinner, Tony and I walked a mile hand in hand, snow crunching under our boots, snowflakes kissing our cheeks, Christmas lights dancing across white-washed landscapes.

I didn’t want it to end. It didn’t. Tuesday’s cancellation came before we finished our walk.

When Light Breaks Through

This morning, I earned my sunrise. Inching down an icy hill to the Yorktown waterfront in pre-dawn darkness, facing my fear of black ice (two wrecks at seventeen will do that), I finally backed into my parking spot at the pier.

And there it was. After four days of nothing—color.

Pink threading through purple. White clouds edged in blue. The sun, hidden for so long, painting the sky again. Not the epic oranges of recent weeks, but something gentler, quieter. Like the sky was saying, “I never left. I was always here, even when you couldn’t see me.”

The Clearing Inside

What I’m beginning to see now is that I’ve been living in internal fog for longer than this weekend’s weather. The clouds of worry, the mist of uncertainty about Christmas plans, the grey of trying to control what isn’t mine to orchestrate—they’ve been blocking my inner sun for weeks.

Somehow though, this weekend, while actual snow fell and real fog obscured the horizon, something inside me cleared. Maybe it was winning a gingerbread contest we didn’t know we’d entered. Maybe it was Tessa’s sweet selflessness. Maybe it was saying yes to Christmas Town on a school night. Maybe it was walking through snow with Tony’s hand in mine.

Or maybe it was God, using every small moment to whisper: “I’m still here, even when you can’t see Me.”

The Faithful Witness

Four mornings in a row, I showed up at the pier to see nothing. But I wasn’t really seeing nothing, was I? I was witnessing God’s faithfulness in the fog. His presence in the grey. His promise that even when clouds obscure everything, He’s still painting sunrises above them, still orchestrating beauty I can’t yet see.

This is what faith looks like: driving to the pier in darkness, trusting the sun will rise even when fog swallows everything. It’s building gingerbread mansions without blueprints. It’s saying yes to joy past bedtime. It’s making Joshua soup with healing instead of heartbreak.

It’s believing God is working even when we can’t see Him.

When Light Breaks Through

This morning’s sunrise wasn’t epic. It didn’t need to be. After so much grey, even the gentlest pink felt like a miracle. After so much fog, even seeing the horizon felt like grace.

The sun rose today in the sky and in my soul. Both had been there all along—the sun faithfully rising, God faithfully working—waiting for the clouds to clear, waiting for me to remember: His light always returns.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Four days of fog can’t stop the sun from rising. Weeks of internal clouds can’t stop God from working.

This morning, as pink threaded through purple across the water, I heard Him clearly: “I never left. I was orchestrating joy in the grey—through gingerbread victories, through snow-kissed walks, through family gathered past bedtime. You just needed the clouds to clear to see what I’ve been doing all along.”

The sun rose today, outside and inside. God is faithful like that despite the fog, or perhaps because of it. If we wake up expecting the sun to rise, should we not also wake expecting Him to work through it?

We just have to keep showing up to see it.