Advent

I’m grateful that Jesus continues to make Himself known in my little life. In ways that are so gentle, loving, graceful. I'm grateful that He doesn’t always answer my prayers the way I want Him to. I smile at this song now, knowing how differently I felt humming to the tune last Christmas season. I begged Jesus to show up in a way that felt powerful, certain, in ways beyond recoginition. Little did I know He was revealing Himself to me just as I had asked, just differently than I imagined. 

I don’t know if this is what it means to be an adult, but I feel like this mid-twenty age more than any other season so far is all about living in constant tension. And by combination of my choices and what I believe to be God’s leading in my own life, I have landed in a season where my life just seems endlessly suspended by possibilities. And there are a lot of questions and most of it feels pretty overwhelming.

We are a couple days from Christmas. I'm not a Christmas person, but 2014 made me an Advent person. Because Advent is all about tension.

It’s about anticipating. About waiting. It’s about Jesus showing up. About His birth, and how His birth changed absolutely everything. Advent is about celebrating. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, ever present, humbled into human likeness. 

I love stories about women in the bible. Of women who trusted in Jesus, who lived by faith and not by feeling because i so often life by feeling. And so, this Advent season, I again reflect on Mary, the celebrated mother of Jesus.

I often wonder exactly how Mary felt during this season – during this blessed anticipation of her baby's arrival. A baby that meant more than a change of season in her life. A baby that she was told would change everything and yet she was carrying in such a normal way. A baby that was King, the Prince of Peace, but not the king anyone expected. A baby born in a time of confusion and chaos, sought by a tyrant king.  

I wonder if she felt like nothing in her life was certain, linear or safe. And yet, her faith anchored her. Truth tethered her heart to a certainty she couldn’t necessarily explain or understand. Truth that changed everything. She lived in tension. She accepted truth, lived out of truth, but “pondered these things in her heart.” (Luke 2.19, King James). 

Advent, above all else, is about hope. It’s about the promise of Jesus and all the freedom He extends to his children within the doubts, struggle, questions and pain of it all.

Christmas isn’t an easy season. I sit here tonight with my heart heavy for many reasons. Close friends of mine are mourning death, and death stirs up all sorts of pain and feelings of loss. I think of my grandfather who spends another Christmas without his wife, friends who will again feel the absence of their parents. I think of poverty, torn families, and the lives that were destroyed by all that happened in Ferguson. I think of people that are dear to me, of myself, who wrestle through much confusion and doubt. And I’m grateful that the message of Advent is for us.

His presence is what we celebrate this Christmas season. Great tragedies do coexist with great Hope. 

I hear this truth freshly in old christmas song. “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”

Dear heart of mine, keep rejoicing. His goodness prevails.