this year, we started our december with a few cases of positive covid in our home. i assure you, not an ideal start to the most wonderful time of the year. as i sit here and type this afternoon, i'm feeling a little weepy — my daughter calls it the covid cries. weepy, but also wondering. i wonder if we are better or worse this year stepping into our final month of 2020.has the covid world totally wrecked us? or, has it possibly awakened us?
has it given us over to anger or has it grabbed hold our attention?
has it brought forth our deepest fears or deepened our weakest faith?
it is the first week of advent — a time when the busy world begins to wind down--to be still. for many years, that “stillness” in early december felt almost laughable. as a mom of many, nothing ever felt very quiet or serene about my december. i hardly ever sat still and i could only long for an occasional silent night or two. but this year is decidedly different.
regardless of confirmed covid or not, here we all are in a world where we’ve been told to stay home and schedule less. for the most part we aren’t planning much of anything. there are no big holiday gatherings or christmas concerts to attend. we aren’t packing ourselves into shopping places or meeting up with girlfriends at crammed coffee shops. the hustle and bustle looks quite different as we scroll websites and click on links promising perfect gifts. but is there any such thing to even be found in this world which feels as if it is quickly falling apart? can a fuzzy sweater or shiny new phone really do it for us this year? i’m guessing no.
but, like good christmas soldiers, we march on in our own way. we are trying.
i was in the grocery store before thanksgiving and wanted to applaud them for their valiant attempt: fake tinsel trees and bright displays everywhere, even some cheery christmas music interrupted with an occasional PSA kindly asking everyone to “do their part, wear their mask and remain six feet apart.” but the masked shoppers with eyes averted scrambling up and down aisles just didn’t fit the fake festive. our happy holiday smiles a thing of last year.
perhaps december looks different, but it makes me wonder if it's at least possible to be better this year at least in our being still? are we using this forced slow to better prepare our hearts and homes in expectancy for the One Perfect Gift … or are we just holed up in our homes at a loss, fearful and feeling the great angst and anxiety of these trying times?
are we using this season to underscore our frustration or to understand better our need for Faith in a true Savior?
we hang words like “hope” and “peace” and “joy” on our christmas trees desperately wanting to believe them. we set up our jolly santas and deck our halls with heartfelt desire. clearly, our world is seeking. seeking joy. seeking light. seeking comfort. seeking answers. maybe like never before.
hopefully like never before.
our family has been cooped up since thanksgiving as covid has run through a few of us here. while i felt fine, but quarantined due to exposure, i was home so much these past couple of weeks. there’s hardly a square inch of our house which hasn’t been christmas-tized. all surfaces fair game for a little greenery or a bright string of lights. it’s like i’m forcing the light in. as if i alone can control the darkness of our current world adding one more flimsy 100 count of bright bulbs.
but, like the perfect gifts promised on amazon, these christmas lights will never be enough. they simply cannot be. first off, they never seem to make it from one year to the next. i don’t know what happens up in our attic when i put them carefully away each year, but they return the next season not working. [if you have any tricks, i’m all ears]. have you ever completed an entire tree our a row of bushes only for them to all burn out just a day or two later? because that’s what temporary decorations do. because, dear ones, pretty baubles and boxed lights will never be enough. they remain only window dressing to a world which is in great need of something so much more. those trees or bushes with burnt out lights remind me of us when we attempt to deck ourselves with our earthly decor. we are seeking something the temporary cannot ever give us. seeking something which will always leave us afraid and anxious. it might appear shiny and bright for a time, but it, will dim like those utterly frustrating light strands up in my attic.
if you’ve never done advent before, i encourage you to begin this year. this is the first week and it’s not too late. advent means “to wait with expectancy.” it’s a time when our eyes and hearts turn forward to the birth of baby Jesus. a time when we fill our homes with extra light and we do our best to become still in the presence of His coming — the Holy Child. the Perfect Gift. the one who didn't leave us alone in our isolated houses and in our many fears, but who came down from heaven for covid, for cancer, for catastrophes, for a world crashing hard. who came for us. you. me. all of us. any of us. no matter what.
i know some of us are waiting for the vaccine. some of us (me!) are waiting to feel better. some are waiting for the year to just be the heck over. but all of this waiting points only to our true longing — the wait for a holy baby laying in a manger. we can convince ourselves otherwise. we can busy ourselves with other things. we can even wrap ourselves up in the world's empty answers. but until we place Jesus at the center of our quest, we will always come up short.
this year has been hard for so many. i hear the stories daily. it’s not just covid, it’s a world faltering in so many other ways as well. can we even deny it? we are burning down. burning out. burning through our weak attempts. and like those temporal strings of light, the answer is found elsewhere.
see the Baby Jesus.
seek the Love come down.
unwrap the only Real Gift.
let the True Light come in.
what are you waiting for?
“I am the Light of the World,
he who follows me shall not walk in darkness,but will have the light of life.” john 8:12
two advent devotionals i have used and love ----
1. the greatest gift: unwrapping the full love story of christmas - ann voskamp
2. come, let us adore Him - a daily advent devotional - paul tripp