Anticipation is the lifeblood of Advent. But maybe the form it takes inside of us can make it feel more like a curse.
You, like me, might be staring at a calendar that includes a whole lot of what you wouldn’t have wished for this Advent … a whole lot of “mess in the manger” – it sounds cute when we say it, and yet this mess amid a wonder-filled season is hard living for the soul.
You see, our childhood memories so often include when we rested our heads underneath the Christmas tree and saw nothing but sparkle and wonder ahead. This past week, I found my little girl with her head propped on a pillow under our polar-bear-like blanket, staring at the tree we’d just spent hours decorating. She was me as a little girl, absorbed in potential – immersed in the beauty of these minutes strung together like shimmering lighthouses, promising goodness and safety.
And even if snow globe memories of childhood evade us, we have kryptonite in our devices reminding us of our neighbor’s award-winning tree or our friend’s unparalleled Christmas party or the matching pajamas another family wears … definitely without holes at the knees or persistent hot chocolate stains, like ours.
Advent is for anticipating, yet so much of our lives are lived in the real, where what we anticipated just didn’t pan out. It’s been decades since we were that little girl under the tree, eyes brimming with expectancy.
So what do you do when your Advent, already, is not what you expected? When your December holds doctor visits or contractor invoices (you didn’t plan for the freeze that burst your pipes) or the loud silence in response to your reach to love? When the wish lists are longer than your budget, and the kids are even crankier than you envisioned when you spent an hour bundling them for the walking nativity?
When Life is Full and We Feel Small
Advent is full. So very full … of too much (amazon boxes and to-do lists and teacher gifts) and not enough (sleep and supplements and time and quiet nights at home). And somewhere in this month, there is the collision of our little-boy and -girl wonder and a life that just isn’t what we expected it to be.
December is, actually, small.
Much smaller than our wonder-filled bodies and hearts and minds … oriented toward expectancy (“he has put eternity into man’s heart” Ecclesiastes 3:11), yet living limited, anticipated.
David said in Psalm 16:6: “The [boundary] lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” And I wonder if he knew weeks of sleeplessness at the hands of a colicky babe or the long months and years of taking care of a sick parent. Surely, I’ve read about the pain of his life, and yet somehow, I feel like my unrelenting health challenges aren’t often boundaries that I can call pleasant.
But this is where we’re headed, friends. This seemingly-idealistic statement of David’s isn’t merely for hand-lettering on the wall above the crib; it is the picture of where God is taking us … if we’ll let Him.
. . . if we will let Him.
Jesus … limited?
This Jesus was limited, just like you and me. God, magnificent and all-powerful, who knew every single thing that happened and was to happen, was birthed in a covering of vernix amid a world of hatred and strife. He needed seven hours of sleep and His feet blistered and He got thirsty. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).
Jesus, limited … just like you and me.
So as we stand in cold December, bodies and hearts leaning toward hope (because if there ever was a time to hope, something inside of us knows that now is it), and yet staring at a pile of bills or a pile of laundry or a pile of amazon boxes that all want to whisper to us: “your life would be better if you didn’t have _____” let us take a moment to receive (to absorb) that God is leading us to the same place He led David.
Our limitations are a gift because it’s inside of limited skin that Jesus became healing for the whole world.
Our Weakness .. a gift?
Our weakness is made to usher in a strength and beauty of God (a connection with Him) we wouldn’t otherwise know if we didn’t have those boundaries. Inside of your “skin” – your limitations – is wholeness in God.
Your unrelenting cough or your angry boss or your estranged father are all a part of a grander story (you know, the story that little girl is desperate for when she lays with her head underneath the Christmas tree staring up at the lights) … fraught with pain and loss and a whole-lot-of-real, that … if you’ll let Him … will be a part of your very own renewal.
Your limitations … they are a gift, this Advent.