Yesterday was Fat Tuesday. In the spirit of indulgence, I had fried chicken, cornbread, squash casserole, potato salad, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for lunch today. I did drink water instead of sweet tea—and I felt righteous. Haha.
Lent itself is a commemoration of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting and praying. Traditionally Lenten observations include fasting and outward displays of repentence like marking oneself with ashes in preparation for Easter. Many people “fast” from something, like giving up caffeine or sugar. I once knew a woman whose family made a financial fast and did not spend any money except for necessary groceries and bills. Her family donated that money to the church at the end of Lent.
Years ago a friend of mine said she tried to adopt a new practice or incorporate an addition into her life rather than just practice self-denial. I liked that idea so much, I tried it myself a few times.
It turns out I’m not highly successful at adding practice, nor denying self. If at first you don’t succeed, bloom again. So today I begin anew.
Although not a universal practice in the Protestant faith, I do observe Lent. I find it centering and helpful as I try to hold space for the sacred in my life. I will observe Ash Wednesday today at church with ashes on my forehead placed by the minister. I will accept the call to try again to grow in grace as I reflect and repent and renew a “right spirit within me.” This year I am going to read “Lent in Plain Sight; A Devotion through Ten Objects” by Jill Duffield. I do hope for at least one nugget of wisdom.
If I were to try to observe a fast, it would be a fast from rewarding myself with food. I am an emotional eater and drinker. I consume food and drink in celebration. I consume for comfort when I have a bad day. I consume to reward when it’s been a great day. Plainly I like food and drink. While I don’t think deriving pleasure from meals is sinful at all, using food the way I do is not always a healthy practice. I don’t “need a drink” at the end of the day, I want one. Ditto for any other food (or diet Dr. Pepper) I use as reward or comfort. I would really like to break this habit, but I don’t know how successful I will be. It isn’t the elimination of food or drink that I seek, but a reorientation of how to treat my mind and body gently. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Until then gentle reader, remember your how worthy you are and just how much you are loved. Let’s go together to the cross and see what happens.
I’ve been trying to write a post about faith for a while now. I am not sure how to start. Faith is highly personal and I have no wish to upset the apple carts of others. I have friends and family and loved ones far and wide who all sit at the same table, partake of the same truth, and come away with completely different views of fulfillment.
When my boys were little, I taught them that Jesus was always in their hearts and they could carry Him around with them everywhere all the time. I wasn’t just saying that because I wanted them to be good. I meant it. We are so full of Jesus right from the beginning and we don’t even know it! That’s what love is. The yearning to keep that love connection is what leads us to a relationship with God. And that’s the closest to “witnessing” I ever got!
I did not proselytize unless my boys had a question for me (which of course they did), or a challenge during confirmation they wanted to talk out (which they did). I never pushed. I probed around the edges. We prayed together. We participated in Advent and Lent. Andy and I took them to Sunday School and worship service. We taught them the Lord’s Prayer. We tried to live by example. I lived in fear of pushing my own beliefs on them. My parents did that to me and it took almost two decades to undo the damage. I don’t know. We did what we knew to do at the time. Now that the boys are almost grown, it is their turn to find their own truths. We still pray at dinner and family gatherings. We still attend church together as a family. We are here for guidance and support.
Flame and Cross, symbol of the United Methodist Church
I am a United Methodist by choice. I promised to uphold the church with my prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Well, all hail John Wesley, but I’m not good at or comfortable with the witnessing part of the equation. The prayers, presence gifts, and service part, I do pretty well. I like a good debate. I enjoy an exploration. I like talking about and talking through personal questions and experiences. I like sharing meals and singing hymns. I like corporate prayer recitations, and taking communion. I enjoy being with fellow believers on Sunday mornings. I love the idea that people all over the world are reciting the same prayers and believing in the same God at the same time. That is powerful!
The idea of witness, or “leading someone to Christ” makes me cringe. I don’t know why exactly, it just does. To be blunt, people get really uncomfortable talking about “being saved.” Well, I understand that. It’s a hard thing to talk about. How on earth do you explain the moment you were touched by God? How do rationalize how you came to know and feel the presence of Jesus in your heart whether or not your mind understands it? It doesn’t always happen all at once. For many of us (self included) it’s a longer, quieter, softer journey. Some of us grow up in a church, with Christians all around us, and don’t have a clue what salvation really means until one day, you just know.
I do have sympathy with people who struggle to find a church home, or a faith journey of any kind. Growing is not static. How can I grow and yet feel comfortable enough to take a risk and ask a question? I have been in that moment so many times, I could take up residence there.
I love a good Bible study, but I don’t truck with us versus them theology. I have seen and known and loved so many people who have been hurt by the church or the “faith community” at large that I have developed an allergy to judgment by the church. This is unfortunate, because speaking the truth in love is very powerful. As a rule, this truth speaking is not done very well by the church–or by humans in general. I am amused and ashamed by turns at how often I find truth outside of “Christianity”–as if we are the only owners of all that is good or holy or true.
So for those of us on the journey, with someone on a journey, or anti-journey at all, here is my attempt at witness. For my knowing friends and doubting friends, intractable believers and non-believers alike, I want you to know that you are not alone. In fact you are never alone. Faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive. Both states co-exist for me all the time. It is in the wrestling and the crisis and the confusion that faith is strengthened. Oswald Chambers wrote in the book, My Utmost for His Highest, “faith by its very nature must be tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds.” I promise you friends, God is big enough for our little mustard seeds of faith.
Quote from a sermon by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, 4/11/21.
Pondering how God is willing to include every single human ever created, because of his immense, all powerful love that obliterates every single moment of human suffering, wrong doing, unkindness (the list is endless) is overwhelming. The idea that God created an atonement so perfect and so complete that all wrongs are made right is more than I can wrap my judgmental heart around. There are simply no words to describe such a gift. There are often no words to explain how accepting this gift changes your life. Those changes may be so subtle that you won’t even know it until you lived with it a while.
The beauty of the mystery of faith is that it is a mystery. We try to put words and rules and belief systems around the mystery of a perfect incarnate God and call it faith and discipline and righteousness. We’ve been trying to describe the same mystery for centuries and we’re no better at it now (and perhaps much worse) than we were then.
Religious labels in general have been taking a beating since the dawn of man. The number of wars fought and the amount of blood shed in the name of “your version of God here” is mind blowing. For those who find the world full of hate and anger and envy and distrust, the idea of loving anything can be so scary. Many people will scoff and say that love is just love and has nothing to do with God or any other “whatever is out there”. If we believe that we are made in God’s image (many don’t, I do), then our understanding and expression of love comes from God. Does that mean love doesn’t get warped and tarnished and distorted or shattered by humanity? No, it doesn’t. Love is destroyed every day. We keep going back to the well anyway, because we believe in an ultimate goodness. We believe in right over wrong. Light over dark. Good over evil. You call it what you want, I call it Love. And, God.Is.Love.
A long time ago when I was in a small formation group at church someone asked, “where does the Christianity piece come in to doing good? Even atheists do the right thing..” Inevitably, the next question for me was, “if we’re all going around doing the right thing and following a similar moral order and helping each other in the name of humanity, does being a Christian even matter?”
This question is a big deal to me. I’ve raised two children in the Christian faith and I’m trying to live a life based on a belief system I think is worthy. If Jesus can’t be more than just a good guy, then for me the mystery and power of my faith is lost. I’ve known lots of good guys in my life. I’ve had many role models. I’ve even known some true believers who inspired me to make life better. But I have to tell you there are very few people out there who have emulated the truly sacrificial nature of what perfect love looks like.
The essence of Christianity for me is a true understanding of what it means to sacrifice for someone else. To lay down one’s life for one’s friends–notice I didn’t say for something you believe in, or for war, or for an idea–but for another human being. There are many types of relationships that emulate this idea of self-sacrifice: parents and children, brothers and sisters, soldiers who share a foxhole, young love, soul mates, kindred spirits. There isn’t a lack of stories about people doing incredible things or making ultimate sacrifices in the name of love for someone. What there is a serious lack of is day to day commitment to making all people matter. God’s love extends to all people in all religions, in all walks of live, in every corner of this beautiful earth that we are so intent on destroying for our own purposes. Our commitment to His kingdom has to include all people, because our claim on His love is no stronger than the love we have for all people.
“It takes a while to understand what you said yes to.”
Pastor Mark Gooden, First Centenary UMC, 10/21/2018
Return with me if you will to the call of the Methodist Church to pray and offer presence, gifts, service and witness to the church and the community at large. When we’re doing “the good work of the kingdom” we’re learning about the person we’re helping. We’re learning about ourselves and how our own lives rely on the generosity and willingness of someone else. We’re engaging in a relationship that may one day call on us to make a supreme sacrifice. It may not mean laying down our life, but it may mean challenging the social order. It may mean working for justice. It may mean standing up for something or someone unpopular. It may mean shutting up and listening so we can learn something. It may mean following a call that we don’t want to follow.
When we offer our time to share with another person (whether helping, healing, or hoping with them), we are saying you are worthy of my time. You are equally as important to me as anything or anyone else I was going to engage with today. You have an equal claim to the kingdom of God. You have an equal portion of His love and His grace and His abundance in whatever way you wish to take it.
Let’s claim our portion together friends, so that when the day comes when we are to lay down our lives for one another, we will do so with love and a willing spirit.
Today has been a comedy of errors. Murphy is not kind. As the dutiful loving spouse who does not work outside the home in a 9-5 capacity, I am tasked with going to the airport early to check luggage so my DH (dear husband) can work all day and roll in by the skin of his teeth to make an early evening flight. It is what it is.
Our Journey
After being jerked around by delay updates via text from the airline all afternoon, we decided to roll the dice and get on our flight anyway. I checked the golf clubs at the counter. Ofcourse the bag is heavy and extra long and the wheel caught one of the silver poles. The weight jerked me down and I promptly lost my balance. I fell backwards over my suitcase and tossed the contents of my carry-on all over the floor in front of the counter. I was so tangled it took three people to help me up. I didn’t know if I should laugh, cry, or curtsy, so I took a bow.
Once I recovered and got the clubs checked, the flight was promptly delayed again. My DH asked me to go back to the counter to see if I could get the clubs returned. So I did. And then the flight was promptly reinstated. Don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor.
To be continued…
We doubled down and checked the clubs yet again. My TSA pre number was missing from my boarding pass. So we took the time to get that fixed and damn it if my boots didn’t set off the metal detector and I had to take my shoes off anyway. This. Was. Not. My. Day.
Seeking solace at the lone bar in Chattavegas airport, we sat down. Thirty minutes later we bought our own dinner from a kiosk around the corner. It wasn’t the fault of the waitresses. They were overwhelmed by the number of people stuck with delayed flights in our joke of an airport.
To Be Continued…
We got the clubs back again and drove to Atlanta in downpour of rain and darkness in hopes of catching the last flight out to our destination. My boots set off the metal detector again.
We made the flight and got on the plane. It was a long bumpy flight but we made it. Drove to the hotel. The valet was closed and circle driveway to the front of the hotel was cordoned off. Seriously? So we self parked in the desert and wandered into the lobby like the forlorn bedraggled zombies we were.
In the End…
Woke up this morning. No bruises on my bum, but my back is quite angry about my fall. I couldn’t summon the energy for gratitude at 2 AM. Today, however, the sun is shining. I had blueberry pancakes for breakfast and I took a lovely stroll around the golf course before heading to explore the Japanese Tea Garden downtown. Grateful for the attitude reset and the possibility of Advil.
Working this hard to have fun is frankly ridiculous. Peace Out from your favorite First World Princess. Dental Nerds and Bookish Wives play hard at tooth conferences. Let’s Get this Party Started.
Is there anything scarier than watching your child pull out of the driveway? Twice in the same week I have watched my sons (19 and 16) drive away for journeys they were more than ready for, while I was a mess. My oldest drove back to college—a 12 hour trek with no stops—ahead of Icemaggedon on Sunday. My youngest drove to school this morning up a driveway and onto a highway with less than ideal conditions full of drivers with no experience driving in winter weather. Jesus take the wheel. The whole way. Every day.
The comeback joke in this house everytime someone has to do something that they don’t want to do, or that is inconvenient, or stressful, or embarrassing is “adulting is hard.”
The crazy thing is I’m doing so much more adulting than they are doing! Everytime I watch my sons do the mature thing, or the grown up thing, or the right thing—or the wrong thing, I sit on my hands and fight the urge to rescue. I always answer when the phone rings, or there is a question, or help is requested, but until that moment, I practicing “being, not doing.”
Parenting means learning to be with, not do for, and it gets harder not easier! Parenting big kids means asking in a respectful tone, accepting the response even when it isn’t what I want to hear, and treating my not quite grown kids as grown. I’m still teaching—how to pay bills, talk with a person at the bank, buy a plane ticket, car care, and curfews. I’m still advocating—did you talk with your teacher/professor/advisor? Do you need backup or can you handle it? Mostly, parenting involves answering my husband with “he said he could handle it,” and trusting that everything is fine.
It’s so weird being a parent to my teenagers. I still remember chafing at unnecessary rules and feeling that punishments were arbitrary. I’m not sure that’s what happened, but I remember how that felt. Possible there are differences between boys and girls. My current wardrobe fights revolve around collared shirts and wearing belts and haircuts. Car privileges revolve around speeding, communicating, and driving others. We are likely too permissive, but it has worked so far. Our boys are very different, but their love of liberty is the same. I feel like our leash is longer than some and likely shorter than many, but somehow we have been really fortunate to let the chain out slowly. It is more of a struggle with our younger son because he has always seen his brother with more freedom. The age difference just doesn’t register.
I still have two years with my youngest. We are doing a dance with angst and privileges and staying in his room all the time and gaming versus homework. You know, the teenager stuff. But every now and then, I’ll catch him in a good moment. We’ll share some cookies at the counter, or some chick-fil-a in the car, and talk about his role in the play, or a show we like, or exchange opinions about something happening in the world. I see glimmers of where we are going and I am happy and hopeful.
I saw a great meme the other day that said, “I’m not an empty nester. I’m a bird launcher.” Now that’s adulting! Perspective is key.
It’s January. Hurry quick, open that new calendar. Fill in all the empty spaces. Start that new workout. Dry January here we go. No, no, no! Never again.
In the not too distant past, I found myself at the end of January sick with worry, sick with poor health, sick with grief, and tired, oh so tired. My body was ringing a four alarm fire alert and I just wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t! People depended on me. Life pretty much brought me to my knees.
I called a friend who became my health coach, confidant, and life guide through the darkness and into the light. After listening to a litany of woes and then a list of unrealistic goals for myself, she calmly said, no. She went on to say that January is in the middle of winter. Trying to remake yourself because of a date on the calendar rings hollow and will likely fail. You need to hibernate. Listen to your body. Once you quiet your body we’ll work on the other stuff.
So I stayed in hibernation. I followed my doctor’s orders. I began researching alternative ways of listening to my body. Heeding my coach’s advice, I paid attention to the rhythm of the universe, the cycle of the moon, what my body was telling me, and I prayed alot. I prayed for longer days and shorter nights and believed I could learn to sleep again.
Spring came. It was time. I was ready. I made the decision to resign from a job I loved to focus on my health and my family.
Spring turned towards summer. School ended. I slept. And slept. And slept. For six weeks I moved from my bed to a sunny window to my yoga mat to my sunny window to my bed whenever and however I could. I went for long walks. I danced in the kitchen. I ate what my body craved. I removed “should” from my vocabulary. I healed first my body, then my heart, then my mind.
It has been a few years and I am in such a healthier place now. I work hard to stay there. My coach and I check in from time to time. We trade information and ask questions about new products. We talk about vitamins and skincare and the state of the world. Sometimes, we take long walks and trade parenting advice and share mothering woes. I am well and getting weller all the time.
I have learned to make more sacred spaces for my time and I try not to cancel on myself. The only permission I need to live my life is mine. I have gone back to teaching—sometimes for pay, sometimes as a volunteer, always for love. I volunteer in my community because I can and I want to. I care for my mother with better boundaries and lower expectations. If I want to sing, I sing. If I want to write, I write. I meet friends for dinner and long walks and coffee. I meet my husband for lunch and daytime dates. If my family will be home for dinner, we sit at the table with cloth napkins and china and celebrate being together—even if it’s take out. I am well and getting weller.
I have no big goals or resolutions for 2024 just now. It’s winter. I am still hibernating, recovering from a whirlwind holiday season and preparing for the mixed emotions of my college student leaving again. I will make space for rest regardless of the calendar.
My beginning begins when the crocus bloom and the daffodils peek out from the ground. New ideas come with longer days and shorter nights when there is time to play and explore. When the ground greens up and the leaves pop out, I will be ready. I am well and getting weller all the time. See you in the Spring.
Advent is over. The Christ candle is now lit. The promise of deliverance has been fulfilled. The twelve days of Christmastide commence. As we turn towards Epiphany, I ask, what epiphanies did you experience this year? 2023 was a year of first and lasts and quite a few changes for our family. 2024 looks to be just as interesting and frankly uncertain.
Is it ironic that we celebrate the search for the promised Christ by the Wisemen twelve days after Christmas Day? I think not. Our journey isn’t over, in fact, it begins anew. I once participated in a Bible study in which we were encouraged to draw how we saw our journey. A dear friend of great faith and wisdom drew a corkscrew. It was an epiphany for many of us. While our life is cyclical and we experience so many of our challenges over and over again, we are forever moving forward. I frequently think of my friend’s description and am comforted by her image.
As we journey together through a new calendar year, resolutions, affirmations, whatever we choose to call them, I take comfort in the fact that life will change—for everyone—because only we can make change. The changes may be subtle or they may be cosmic. Like the Wisemen, we respond to events beyond our control and reshape our journey accordingly.
Our Christmas Eve message on Sunday was about how to be the change. We are called to look inside our hearts and minds and use all the beautiful amazing talents and gifts freely given to us by the Creator and use them for change. We are the good. We are the light. We bring hope.
I am on the uncertain, challenging, wild journey here on earth with you dear ones. I’ve got you. One day, one hour, one epiphany at a time.
This evening is the first time I’ve really been able to sit and enjoy our Christmas tree. I’m baking cookies and listening to Christmas music. My boys are upstairs on the playstation making an enormous amount of noise. My husband is still at work, doing what he does to give us this life. It sounds like a Hallmark card doesn’t it? Make no mistake, it is not, but I’m going to drink in this moment of quiet joy.
I’m looking over the ornaments and smiling over each one. Almost every single one tells a story. There are the boys’ preschool and elementary ornaments that make me tear up. The family photos turned into keepsake ornaments. The baby’s first ornaments. The our first Christmas ornaments. The 1999 and 2000 ornaments celebrating our turn of the century survival—both times. IYKYK.
To my right on the countertop are the boys’ preschool handprint reindeer from the 3 year old class and their handprint Santa plates for cookies from the 4 year old class. The boys are not twins, but they attended the same preschool within a similar time frame, so I revel in the continuity of artwork Their spring flowers footprints hang over my washing machine!
Last night during our drive to see the Rock City Lights and visit Santa, I asked everyone if they had any “iconic” Christmas moments. I guess I didn’t mean iconic exactly, but I couldn’t really think of a word to express myself. I said, do you have a memory or a moment when you just know it’s Christmas? We all shared one. The appearance of Chris our Elf on December 1st, the Advent Wreath, Mimi’s house on Christmas Eve.
If you are old enough to remember 33rpm records on the record player, you may remember stories recorded on albums. We had three story albums that I remember: Disney’s The Fox and the Hound, Annie, and Frosty the Snowman. It wasn’t really Christmas time until we turned that record player on and listened to the story while decorating the tree. I always tried to be ready for the halfway point, so I could flip the record and finish the story with minimal interruption! I must have played that record a thousand times. I wish I still had it. Alas it went the way of record players in general.
Found this pic on ETSY. Frosty lives!
Sending you and yours warm wishes for health and happiness. See y’all in the New Year if not before.
Last night’s devotion by Nancy Wolgemuth was on remembering. Her message resonated with me so strongly that I woke up this morning and decided to share my thoughts with you. The hymn focus was on “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”.
Wolgemuth writes: ”‘God rest ye merry’ was an old English expression that basically meant, ‘may God make you or keep you joyful.’” She continues, “But why? What was the basis for this joy, the merriment?” (p. 83)
Wolgemuth goes on to say that the reason was rememberance. For some people the Christmas season is full of merriment and unbridled joy, and for others the season is not a happy one. It is full of sadness and concern. Remembering gives us the opportunity to “reverse the process” of the negative by focusing on the positive happenings in our lives in our past, in our present, what might be coming in the future. In her daily prayer, Wolgemuth writes, “Lord show me where to look back and remember…bring to mind scenes from my life when You’ve proven Your steadfast love toward me…Remembering fills me with joy.” (p. 83-84)
During Advent, I take the time to look back on the year and reflect on those moments of steadfast love. There are many. To be fair, I readily admit I live a charmed life. I experience so much goodness, I can’t help but see the goodness in others. However, it’s not all wine and roses. Remembering is not sugar-coating the difficult times. How we remember all of our times, good and bad, shapes our view of the present and the future. If we hold on to the steadfastness of those who love us (or have loved us), especially Christ, we remember that there is goodness in the midst of the dark, the lonely, the terrible, and the broken.
I am reminded of Ebenezer Scrooge. If Charles Dickens’ story isn’t this very idea, I don’t know what is. It all comes down to perspective. Scrooge is taken on a remembrance journey. Do you remember how in the past you felt about this? Do you see the present around you now? Your future will be determined by the actions of your remembrance. There is time to change your thinking.
Remembrance is a core tenet of Christianity. Remember your baptism. Take eat and drink…do this in remembrance of me. According to a quick Google search, the word remember is used over 350 times in the Bible. Advent gives us time and space to reorient our perspective so that we are ready for that most holy life gifted to us on Christmas Day. Dear Friends, remember the good and celebrate it. Remember the bad and heal from it. ”God rest ye merry gentlemen [ahem, let’s say humankind], let nothing you dismay…oh tidings of comfort and joy” to you.
Love Y’all, Marla
Wolgemuth, Nancy DeMoss. (2020). “Born a Child and yet a King: The Gospel in the Carols.” Moody Press.
It’s week two of Advent. Yes, I’m still doing my daily devotional, wherever I can squeeze it in. I am working through “Born a Child and Yet a King” by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth which explores the Gospel through Christmas Carols. Normally, I am a Richard Rohr, St. Francis, Beth Richardson kind of Advent person. This year, I went with hymns; I think because I am singing again. I love to sing and I know every verse of all of these familiar hymns. I know, I know, the point is to get uncomfortable, but truly, this year, I am reveling in the comfort and familiarity and joy of song.
I joined a church choir ten minutes from my house for the Christmas season. Sunday is the Christmas Cantata. I am singing for Christmas for the first time since I was pregnant with my younger son. I am so happy I could cry. We have a big rehearsal tomorrow with the orchestra ensemble. What a way to start my Saturday.
I’ve been binge watching Hallmark movies, eating Christmasy food, and basically ignoring every rule I have for myself except bedtime. I’m going to to sit in front of my fireplace on the couch and just bask in all the love that is around me. My boys will be home with me without agenda or homework in 7 days. My husband is taking six days off for Christmas. I haven’t always had Christmas seasons that make me this happy, so I am soaking it all up. Every single drop.
I promise to write an inspiring, thoughtful pieceabout what I learned during Advent soon. I will. In the meantime, sending you all the peace and goodwill your hearts can hold as we journey to the manger. “Hey, unto ya, a child is born!” (Gladys Herdmann)
Advent is one of my favorite times of the year. No, I do not have one of those countdown to Christmas calendars although those are probably fun. I enjoy the mindfulness and purposeful slowing down to practice the waiting and anticipation for the coming of Jesus. The older I get, the more I enjoy this season.
When I was a young mom, Advent was so hard. We would all get tangled up in the hoopla. I was trying to do the right thing and stem the tide of global consumerism and instead create a willing and thoughtful spirit in my children. What a disaster that was! I couldn’t even find a willing and thoughtful spirit in myself!
As the boys got older, we started making Advent wreaths together and sometimes reading Advent devotions before school. Back when they ate breakfast and stood still for more than 90 seconds, I would light the candles and we would take turns praying over our Eggo waffles and Nutragrain bars. The boys took turns blowing out the candles. It was their favorite part. My oldest called the smoke from the candles, Jesus smoke.
When the boys became too much to corral and school parties and sleep and presents and parades and tree lightings and so on began to take over our lives, I began celebrating Advent on my own. I would deliver everyone to school and on days that I didn’t go straight to work, I would come home and enjoy a cup of tea and my Advent devotion. It was a very peaceful moment for me in a not so peaceful time.
I also enjoy Advent because I am not a daily Bible reader (gasp, the shame). I find that I need an end goal for my Bible reading. Group studies often help me there. But daily quiet time with the Almighty is harder for me than one would think. Advent offers that time for me. I know over the next 24 days, I will specifically make time to sit with this year’s devotion of choice, read a little bit, ponder, write, and pray. I am so looking forward to the discipline. I don’t know why I cannot carry that over into my daily life, but I have never been successful at doing so outside of a group study. (I also do a self study at Lent, but that’s another post for another day).
Recently I was catching up with Sarah Bessey’s blog and her thoughts on Advent. I liked what she had to say about joy:
The joy born out of suffering and longing is more beautiful for its very complexity…. joy doesn’t erase the longing and the sadness that came before but it does redeem it, it may even stain backwards changing how we look at those days or years. But the joy is made more real, richer and deeper perhaps, because we longed for it with all our hearts for so many days.
SaraH Bessey, Advent is for the ones who know longing, Nov. 29, 2023.
Somewhere along the way it all clicked for me. Advent is the time for me to reflect on all my longings, all my troubles, all the good things, all the hard things and wonder at the joy these things bring me in the end. Parenting is hard. Mom-ing is hard. Daughter-ing is hard. Sister-ing is hard. Marriage is hard. Teaching is hard. There are good moments and lots of not great moments, but in the end it all brings me joy. No wonder one of the candles we light is the candle of joy. And that is what Advent is all about. The coming of Christ. The coming of One who wants to bring us joy. The coming of One who wants to ease and redeem our suffering, not erase it. The coming of One who will lead us towards fuller hearts and fuller lives and be present with us in the making of those lives–the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.
So with a full heart, tomorrow I will turn towards Advent and Joy. I will stop waiting for the other shoe to drop (as my anxiety driven self frequently does) and just plain live out the joy of the moment. I will wait for the coming of all of our hopes and peace and love for the now and not yet with great joy.
Marla's Alphabet Soup 