Still Waiting: The Silence of Advent

People ask how we are doing and I’m never quite sure what to say. We’re getting by. We’re making do. We’re still waiting.

This process of waiting for God’s answer is hardly a fast one, at least not in my own experience. I know that this usually means he is molding me in the waiting but I tend not to like that part. I feel like I’m experiences a lot of silence.

There is so much I love about Advent that feels especially appropriate to experience in silence and stillness, especially when my heart doesn’t feel particularly still.  Yesterday  I let the stress get to me. I yelled at my kids. I blew up at my husband. I freaked out because the bathroom wasn’t clean and I literally didn’t know when I was going to have time to do it.

Definitely not my proudest day. But I’m learning that when that happens, rather than double down on the work and the corresponding stress, I need to step away and regroup. To be silent and still on the outside so my insides can begin to do the same.

I didn’t do that today, and I’m sorry for it.

Advent can be an amazing time of year to experience and magic and the atmosphere, but only if we let ourselves slow down enough. I kind of hope it snows for Christmas this year because there is something about snow that seems to slow everything down. People drive slower, and the sounds of the world are muffled by the falling snow.

One of the simple pleasures of this year is how fun my daughter is to be with. This child who just a year ago, I didn’t recognize, is filled with holiday spirit. She told me the other day that Christmas makes her feel all warm inside and she just wants to hug people all the time.  She is feeling the peace and happiness that I want. So I join her in the frequent holiday induced joy and I feel the slow light of Christmas beginning to dawn in me as well.

My middle son has a way of filling the world with noise and chaos, which doesn’t often feel like a good thing, and yet I see in him a reminder of how we all could be, if we fully grasped the reality of what was done at Christmas.  I need to find more ways to embrace his excitement.

My littlest, baby of the family, is at the wonder age. He looks at the lighted Christmas tree, the Nativity (especially the one he’s allowed to touch) and hears the music and is transformed. His face lights up and I see in him the ability to stand aside with holy distraction. I can release the worry and hurry and stand aside with him as I allow myself to be filled with my own sense of wonder.

Things may not be going as planned, our lives may still be in limbo and on the outside it may not look like much of a Christmas, but I can still be waiting.

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.