You're Not Where You're Supposed to Be - An Advent Message

You carry in fresh Noble branches, stand them straight to tower proud, the center of the rooms delight. Lacing wires as they weave inward-up, the twinkles dance between widths starting from the widest to the very tip. Little hands carry glass, ornate in pallets of color and place them at eye level, you step back, tilt your head and smile. 

Days later, it’s time to enchant the room as eve sets in, a flip of the switch to welcome the glory but this time nothing happens. On and off, on and off, again, it remains the same. Your proud tree, once gazed upon with such warmth, is now a seen cold, a sheer disappointment, the branches weep too.
Resonating with these words with an internal, “Amen!” And it’s true, in and out of season it’s true…

I am alive enough…to have problems, till die

I am among men enough…to know keen disappointments

I have enough sense of vocation…to be overworked

I have enough communion of the saints…to be hurt.  -Don Postema, Space for God

 
It is a shame the holidays are blended with exhaustion, whirlwinds of disappointment, emotions unmanageable, sorrows and even regret. But, should we really expect anything else? I am finding in the corners of this season a familiar taste, which always begins bitter but is patiently growing sweeter, and when I say patiently I mean it’s microscopically growing in its sweetness. These drips of honey are the longings for more eternal. The tightening in my soul that this, a world full of imperfections, is not how it should be. The pangs within that this life now, is not how it should be nor how it should stay. It's in us all, even without words we know it …

The holiday “to do’s” looked in anticipation, leave tangles of flusters.
The party on Friday, now over.
The gifts treasured, soon a settling place for dust
The bank once full, now quickly empty
The pie prepared, now burnt

Or even deeper…

A home once safe, now full of scars

A church once unified, now divided
The womb once full, now tragically empty
A marriage once sacred, now spoiled in affair
A child neglected, now hopping through foster homes
A friendship once sweet, now unforgiven
A family whole, now parted in death

Is your story any different? Was Christ's?

Isn’t the One who took the lowly road here, who chose the cradle knowing it would carry Him to the cross; The One who will also lead us through a lowly road as well?  Isn’t the One who took the lamenting road home, the One who will also take our hand along a journey of lament as well? All this, not so we lament for the sake of sheer pain, but so we can lament well, change greatly, hope hard! 

When you find Jesus in the story of His word, you find yourself in a story not quite so different than His. Though, not God, but made to be like Him we travel roads familiar and in the shatters of pain where He seems not there, He’s sat all along. Nothing we face, He has already had as well.

I don’t know exactly where your story is being emerged into His right now or where He has taken you in the past nor where He will lead you in the future but I do know that He wraps us up in these moments when the tree doesn’t twinkle, when the conflicts can’t seem to resolve, when the weeping strips us raw, and when the letdowns wisp hollow winds through our soul. He knows them all so that when we tilt our head in the confusion of our present, He can lift our hearts upward toward His promise. Weaving us like the lights on our tree, inward, outward then upward!

May you and I hope hard and lament well this advent  as we await His trumpet sound!  

An Irish Christmas Blessing for you, through me, from Him –

Now may the fragrance of

   His Peace

Soar through your heart

  Like the dove released

Hide in His wings oh,

  Weary distant soul

He'll guide your spirit home

  And may His love poured

from on high

Flow to the depths of your

  Deepest sigh

Oh come and drink from

The only living stream

and on His shoulder lean

And may the hope that will not deceive

Through every pain bring

Eternal ease

There is no night that can

Steal the promises

His coming brings to us

So may His joy rush over you

Delight in the path He has

 Called you to

May all your steps walk in

Heaven’s endless light

Beyond this Christmas night.

       -Keith & Kristyn Getty

Tilting sideways and upward with you,

                                                       -Emily