This season, it is rich with waiting. There’s felt waiting for Christmas to come. Waiting for Winter’s chill to lighten. Longing for loved ones. Longing for healing. Maybe it’s my personal choice to focus on Christmas and Advent, but I think for many there’s a stronger sense of this waiting in us all.
The season of Advent is one of my favorites. I almost look forward to it all year. It’s filled with little joys like Christmas lights and cookies and time with people I love. It is also a moment where I internally pause more. I look toward Christ and what His coming meant and means for me, for us. I daily face toward Christmas with intention. And with each passing day, I wait. I wait for all of the ways in which I sense the ache and need of a Savior, a Healer, a Redeemer, a Friend, an Advocate, a deep deep Love.
I intentionally take time to feel that lack. What are we longing for? Where are we aching for Christ to come? Now? And as soon as possible.
Life, as much as we long for it to be, isn’t fully heaven. It is not fully fixed. As as hard as I might think that’s possible or I work so hard to help it get there, I am learning that often times the healthiest thing, and most life giving thing, is instead to grieve. To feel the places of waiting and longing and see them clearly as possible, as clearly needing more than I can do alone. As needing a Love that is big enough to heal. Big enough to make Life out of any and all deaths.
We are not meant to fix our humanity. That truth is so tough for me. I’d love to bring true healing to all bodies and minds in need of healing so badly right now. Sadly, that is not something I can do. What is however, is hope. Love. Embodying this very life I have, this very skin, and bones and heart and soul, with all of its aches and pains, and embody it in a way that infuses hope, grace, compassion, love and tenderness to all the aching I touch. My life, our lives of love, may not heal miraculously, but they will very really apply a salve to aching wounds.
The empathy of someone who loves you when you’re hurting.
The presence of someone fully seeing, fully loving, fully holding your moment with you, reminding you it’s OK and you’re not alone, even without the use of words.
These and every act of Love heals. It creates a little more Heaven than we had the moments before.
Jesus Christ embodied God. God came in a person. In a body like yours and mine. He witnessed people’s pain. He ached and wept and faced every emotion including those that accompany an extremely painful, undeserved death. He called it all worthy. Worthy of being seen, worthy of being felt, worthy of being loved with no prerequisites. Not only that, he showed us the end game. He showed us none of our pain wasted, unseen, left without new life to follow. All is seen by The One who made us. All felt by Another. All ultimately transformed into a whole new life without tears.
Friends, maybe this season you want to allow yourselves too to ache. Maybe you too want to stop fighting with your humanity and instead be a compassionate loving witness to it. Maybe you want to wrap your loving arms around it all and call it Holy because God has showed you you can.
The miracle of it all, is now we too have the ability of Christ right within us. This ability to love people like Jesus Christ did. This ability to, beyond our own power, give, care for, infuse love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, feel it all, be present with it all and hold every kind of hope in knowing how this whole thing ends better than we can comprehend even in the difficulties.
You matter. We matter. Our love matters.
This Christmas, may we all remember that God is with us. God is loving us from the inside out. God is saving this whole thing. Love matters. There is hope. Our humanity is worth embodying and loving in the deepest most loving ways.
This Christmas, may we all bring a little more Heaven to earth through the Love of Christ present in us.
Grace & Peace & Namaste.
Little Extras
Part of what makes this season for me is this little book: Preparing for Christmas by Richard Rohr. I’ve read it now for 10 years and it still catches me off guard. It recenters me, grounds me, and matures me to see the authentic Jesus Christ as much as I can. I can’t recommend it enough.
“The way for us to truly open the Garden within us is by embracing the hallowed darkness day by day.” This podcast episode on Advent is a great listen: Robcast episode 222 Alexander Shaia on Darkness and Hope
Last month flew by. Flew. So this month I am grateful I got to decorate right after Christmas and along with my devotions am savoring the days as much as I can. I like to fully feel the coming of Christ. The ache and then the joy of healing and hope on the 24 and 25. I hope you find your own rhythms and enjoy the season exactly as your soul desires this year. The photo is a snippet by my little tree at home – a place I enjoy resting and soaking in the season.
Music lover that I am…. December 2018 new music playlist (and one song I love so much from many years passed I couldn’t help but add for a little 😉 ) If you want some favortie Christmas music for your season. My list called Christmas Morning is a selection of current favorites.
I finished my book club’s winter read: Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. Super interesting! More about our thoughts and feelings and storylines we live out of than anything on actual food. I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a new book and a healthier dynamic with this lovely soul-holding body you have.
That’s it for now! May God guide you in this season. May he strengthen you as you move through the month toward all and every new beginnings come 2019.
Thank you for reading!!
If you need some mediations to center and relax during the busy time, please seek them out. If you’d like to listen again to the God-centered ones I’ve created you can find them on iTunes or Soundcloud or Patreon. I am seeking God’s next steps for adding more for you online. I invite you to pray with me if you desire. May all of this be as helpful for you as these learnings and practices have been for me!
