Thoughts on Advent

I love advent. We find ourselves reflecting, hoping, and expecting. We find promises fulfilled and the long-awaited coming to fruition. We find an answer to our groaning and sighing in the desert.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel is one of my favorite Christmas songs. It conjures images in my head of an exiled Israel gathered along the shores of the river, longing for home and clinging to nothing but their stories and promises of a Messiah. Can't you hear their cries? Can't you feel their desperation? Exile brings a darkness and loneliness that is only lit by the hope of promises that have lingered thick in the air for generations.

Fast forward to a first century Israel, still waiting, now oppressed by an unjust Roman government. Into this darkness, hope is born in the dark, dank forgottenness of a Bethlehem stable. After a gestation of years of wandering, of Exile, of being overlooked and oppressed, hope was birthed in the feeble cry of a newborn baby. And that hope was fragile, breakable, weak, and needing to be held close and fed and cared for so that it could grow into the fullness of its strength and power and meaning.

I find that advent is time where hope is born anew in my life. It is often a messy business. A birth in a stable is hardly a glamorous beginning-dirt, hay, animals,and the pain of a young girl with only the help of her new husband. We see this precedence hope breaking into the most unexpected of places. And so I am finding hope in response to my exile, in answer to my groaning, and breaking forth in the midst of my unpreparedness. Perhaps I should have been expecting it all along.

Mm mm Good

There are few things in life as comforting and delicious as a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.

Thoughts on Scars

We talked about Jacob tonight at church, the story where Jacob wrestles with God.

I have always loved this story. It resonates with me on many levels. Any time I revisit this story, I am always struck with a mental image of an aged Jacob, limping his way to his favorite seat as he settles in among all his many grandchildren. "Tell us the story again," they ask, "the story of why you have that limp. The story of when you wrestled with God."

As Jacob retells his story, he knows in the back of his mind that this is not just some story about one fight one night that would have ended in a draw had dawn not broken so soon and his hip not been wrenched out of socket. This is the story of his whole life, his struggle manifested completely that had started when he first grabbed hold of his brother's ankle as they were birthed from their mother's womb. Jacob had wrestled for everything he had every gotten in life, and ultimately wrestled for a blessing from God. And that match left him scarred.

I think we all have our scars; I know for fact that I have mine. Some of them are from fights we've instigated ourselves while others come from experiences in life for which we never would have asked. Either way, these scars tell our stories. They shape our lives, molding us into new people after they've eternally marked our lives.

This weekend has been one when I've thought a good deal about a few specific scars. Suffice it to say that this is an anniversary of an unexpected loss that changed a whole community of people in very difficult ways. In remembering that moment, I find myself marking time and examining how I've changed in the last several years. I find myself remember other difficult moments since that time.

Somehow, all those disjointed yet not so different experiences meld together and leave their mark. I look at myself and I see my scars, plain as day. They begin to diminish slowly over time. But they'll never fade completely. I'll always limp, too. But because of that limp, I am forced to remember and I need to tell my story. I get to mark the events that are ever shaping my life. I, too, can grab hold tightly to the shoulders of God, look him in the face, and demand a blessing, even as my joints are pulled out of place.

In the struggle comes the blessing. There are days I see that clearly and days I feel that I am still waiting. Either way, I have looked God in the eyes and seen that my struggle is not in vain. He meets me blow for blow. And in the end, he calls me overcomer.