Waiting

Christmas stirs.  Memories, emotions, mixing bowls full of cookie dough, people, our comfort zones. This Christmas, I find myself strangely content - most of the time - in the middle of circumstances that I wish were different.

I am not alone.

In my immediate circle of friends and family, one struggles with the loss of a good friend as he lost his battle with an illness way too early in life, one has just lost a job, one needs more income to meet monthly expenses, one doesn't see a way out of a bad marriage, one needs answers to health problems, one is depressed, one just buried her Dad, one is spending her first holidays apart from family, one is caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's, one needs a new car.  The list goes on.

This season of Advent (that waiting period that leads up to the birth of Christ), I'm reframing the season to mean more than just Advent.  I want to see Adventure.  What I am getting is Waiting.  I'm reframing it because - if I'm honest - I thought it would look different.  I thought we'd have a house.  I thought I'd be decorating my new house with my own decorations while having the Martha Stewart Christmas I thought would be mine this Chrsitmas.  Instead, I have a tree I bought from Facebook Marketplace, borrowed ornaments, surrounded by stuff that isn't mine in my temporary home.

I know I come off sounding like a brat.  These are first-world issues.  In the grand scheme of things, I have it good.  I'm grateful - I really am.  I just thought it would look different.  And in the looking different, I find God.

While I wait, I am finding the courage to wait - some more.  This week, I read - what I didn't want to hear with my head - the words of Zephaniah 3:8.  Right out of the gate, the Lord doesn't mince words.  He's straight up.  Clear.

"Therefore, wait for me."

In the waiting, there are some beautiful instructions that are counter-intuitive to what my brain wants to do:   SING for joy, SHOUT loudly, BE GLAD and REJOICE with all your heart.  These are things I typically want to do when things are as I think they should be.

Yet ... God.  God does things strange to my logic yet perfect in His.  He says that I can SING, SHOUT, BE GLAD and REJOICE because He is among me.  He is a warrior who saves.  He will rejoice over me with singing.  He will bring me quietness with His love.  He will delight in me with shouts of joy.  And He will do all these things right in the middle of circumstances that I deem to be undesirable.

Strange.

Yet, that is kinda God's M.O. (Mode of Operation).  Since God is unchangeable, I look at how He brought this "thrill of Hope" into the world over 2,000 years ago.  A baby to working-class parents in the low rent district.  Such a strange way to save the world.  What appeared to be less than perfect circumstances were the perfect circumstances to usher in the light of the world.

In the middle of my current circumstances, I choose to see from Gods perspective.  I don't always get it right.  I don't always rejoice in the moment.  I often shout but not out of a place from joy.  Yet, I am squinting to see the Hope and logic of this advent through the lens of adventure.  I am choosing to see that right now He is with me.  He is among me.  He is and has orchestrated my circumstances so beautifully it supersedes what I can see with my eyes.

I'm waiting ... but not wasting my time.

During this season leading up the birth of Christ, may you find Him in the middle of your circumstances.  He is among us - especially as we WAIT!

Waiting and trying to do more shouting with joy than irritation,
Christina

"A Strange Way to Save the World"