I’ve spent the year reading romance novels.

They’ve never featured prominently on my book lists for the year (click over to Bookshelf for the annual lists), and I think part of that is my English major training…most professors didn’t say it outright, but there was always a little bit of disdain for '“popular fiction” in those hallowed English Building halls. I found myself reading a few in 2022, in those early days of breastfeeding my brand new baby all day long. I was stuck in the rocking chair, exhausted, and with an audible subscription and a Libby app loaded with holds from the local library. The modern romances I read were entertaining. The writing was good, the characters book-ish and delightful. The stories reliably ended happy.

In 2023, I found my way back to those happy stories, almost without realizing what I was doing. I’ve had plenty of thoughtful literary fiction on my shelf, tons of nonfiction full of ideas I’d like to explore, but I found myself returning again and again to those cheerful covers with heroines doing their self-discovery work and falling for the friend/enemy/boy next door in the process. And here we are beginning December, and I’d venture a guess that this new-to-me genre was probably my most-read of 2023.

I think it was because of Claire. The year began with losing her, and for me it has been a year of finding her in all kinds of small, regular moments. I’ll hear her voice in my head while I’m cutting up veggies for salad (she preferred TINY chunks of celery and carrots). I’ll feel her chuckle when Danny does something particularly funny. I’ve even found her in the pages of these books. Romance was her favorite genre. I never understood it before, but I think I do more now than ever: sometimes we read for comfort. We need an old reliable story to remind us that things can and do end well, albeit with some bumps along the way. There are plenty of hardships and horrors to face (she knew it better than anyone), but a brief step into a happy tale can give us the strength to get up and do the work again the next day and the next.

It matters what stories we’re telling.

That’s what I’m thinking about, as we get ready to start the advent season: What story am I reading? Which one am I living? Is there ample others-oriented love? Does my heart need to believe again in a God who loves endlessly, who moves into the neighborhood to make friends with a stranger? Will there be peace in the end, even though it seems so opposite to what I hear and see?

May we be motivated by Love, through and through, until it makes all things new.