Advent Week 4 – He Comes – Peace

*I’ve followed an Advent ordered used in some liturgical churches, but in others, the Love and Peace weeks are switched. No matter, really, just a note.*

gareth-harper-175342

“…Christmas is not simply about a birth but about a coming.”

– Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas

My parents like to tell the story of the Christmas that Santa delivered a Barbie Dream House under the Thompson tree. It turns out, Santa doesn’t much like staying up to 2am putting tiny sticker decals on tiny pretend kitchens. Santa has never really forgiven me for that. There aren’t enough milk and cookies in the world.

Here’s the thing that I should never admit: (Santa, skip on down) I don’t remember wanting a Barbie Dream House. I don’t remember asking for it. I don’t remember putting it on my Christmas list.

But the gift came and it was perfect, my Barbies and I were so excited. I completely forgot I ever wanted it.

Continue reading “Advent Week 4 – He Comes – Peace”

Advent Week 3 – A Very Ordinary Life – Joy

luke-hodde-192670

“Don’t be put off by the ordinariness of the means of joy, for in that ordinariness is hidden the extraordinary riches of the Gospel.”  Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas

For years I was the “run into Target for one thing, spend $100″ girl. I need this shirt, laundry detergent, a 500 pack of cards, and new measuring cups.

But then job leads dry up and so do needless shopping trips. Unemployment squeezes a lot of unnecessary out of a life.

Not too long ago, I walked into Target for the first time in nearly a year. It felt like coming back to a hometown. I knew how to navigate the aisles, but it was all so foreign.

I stayed away from Target like an alcoholic stays away from a bar. Pennies were ruthlessly counted. Retail emails had to go. I counted up how many hours I would need to work at my part-time job to pay my bills. I bought travel size toothpaste and laundry detergent with the hope that by next paycheck, I would have enough for more. One month, I slipped my rent check in the mailbox and was so overwhelmed with gratitude, I welled up with a flood of tears. I didn’t think I would have enough. I didn’t think I would make it.

(Pause: I understand how very first-world this is. I know thousands of people across the country–not to speak of the millions of people in the world who will never even know the provision of having bills to pay–live this way every day and I feel your weariness in just a small way. If I could carry every burden, to ease this for just a bit, I would. I see you.)

A lot of glitter fell off my life in those months. That’s ok. I was never meant to wear a ton of it anyway.

Continue reading “Advent Week 3 – A Very Ordinary Life – Joy”

Advent Week 2 – If your heart is pierced through this Christmas – Love

christmas-2919725_1920

Last Christmas, because of extended unemployment and a dwindling bank account, I left my apartment and moved in with generous friends who have a spare room and even bigger hearts. I spent my days working a part-time retail job and padding around their house trying to will myself to open LinkedIn for yet another day.

One morning the house was quiet, the Christmas tree up, it was raining outside, and I sat down by the fireplace with a cup of coffee and a book I wanted to finish. Hurting and weary, sitting on the floor by that tree was the only thing I could muster up that day.

I believe with all my heart that season of unemployment was ordained. I was intended to sit on the sidelines for a while. The need to produce, drive and succeed needed to die and it was a slow fade. To date, this was the hardest season of my life.

Continue reading “Advent Week 2 – If your heart is pierced through this Christmas – Love”

Advent Week 1: Next Year Will Be Different – Hope

pexels-photo-564908
My parents kept a basket of my old baby clothes in the attic. Most are handmade, smocked by my grandmother. Others are delicate and cost my family a fortune.

My parents had a garage sale recently and to my surprise, these little pieces were in the pile to be sold. Mom kept them stored away, saving them for grandchildren, my children, children I don’t have. And because too much time and fertility had passed, she was selling them along with the hope she would see me with a family.

Continue reading “Advent Week 1: Next Year Will Be Different – Hope”

I hope we can hope again – An Advent Celebration

pexels-photo-383646“That’s the sacred intent of life, of God – to move us continuously toward growth, toward recovering all that is lost and orphaned within us and restoring the divine image imprinted on our soul. And rarely do significant shifts come without a sense of our being lost in dark woods..” – Sue Monk Kidd

I have a tiny tree this year. Wreaths and candles in the windows. I even have Christmas decorations in the bathroom. It’s all set.

An Advent candle wreath was a new addition last Christmas, the year I decided that instead of wagging an angry finger at decades of waiting, I would embrace this season. I joined thousands of others in lighting the candles to commemorate eons of longing for what was most wanted.

Advent – waiting with anticipation, “coming” in Latin.

Throw a rock in LifeWay and you’ll hit an Advent devotional – readings for these four weeks leading up to Christmas. Weeks of quiet, stillness, lighting candles, remembering how much the world groaned under the weight of waiting, hoping, longing. Why in the world do we need to embrace that?

Honestly, this practice confounded me. Mostly because Advent is tinged with the hardest and tenderest parts of life – waiting, hoping, longing, silence, stillness. To make peace with pleading prayers and long-dead dreams has never been something I wanted to chase down.

Many of us are starting down years of silence. Many of us have heard whispered dreams and are hoping for something not yet here. A thousand times we’ve given up.

And yet we still believe this isn’t all. But we can’t quite stomach a belief in anything more than what is in front of us. Here we all land in these weeks before Christmas, weeks we have set aside to remember we are all waiting. Nothing is completely finished. Nothing is completely fulfilled. In the face of years of silence, we are scared to hope in anything greater. We’ve become Sara laughing at the absurdity of the promise. Who can blame us?

Soon we will enter into the story of Mary and Joseph who have only ever heard tale of God’s voice but believed him all the same. Of Elizabeth and Zechariah who had all but given up, yet were still at the temple, still faithful in the only way they could barely eek out. And Simeon, who was waiting in Jerusalem and believed this baby who came to his door would save his soul.

But before all of this, there was white silence.

These weeks as we march up to this story of a census, manger, innkeeper, angel choir and mighty baby, let’s honor the waiting. Let us peel back the promise for just a second and remember what it is like to not hear, not see, not know. Let us honor the faith that builds only through heart-sick hope.

I am not an expert in anything, not the smartest, most refined person to know. Most days I feel like the cheese is barely on the cracker. But I have been waiting a long time for many, many things. In fact, I’m not entirely sure I can point to one area of my life in which I am not waiting. I’ve spent years mourning what I did not have while nearly missing the faith the Lord was building in me – the sturdy kind that won’t break when things like careers, relationships and hearts break. That brand of faith can only come from watching and waiting.

Over the next four weeks, I simply want to tell a few stories to celebrate the pillars of Advent – Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace. I want to pull tender, often hidden parts of life, into the light and pray they will strengthen weak faith and renew abandoned hope.

I hope you will come along. Just one story a week, the first one will post this Wednesday.

I hope we all can hope again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading “I hope we can hope again – An Advent Celebration”