Blog - My Overthinking

It’s time. The perforated cardboard doors are all open. All the felt pockets are empty of their trinkets. A couple days ago, we read about Ezra and Nehemiah. But, the very next reading jumped ahead hundreds of years to what they all had been talking about and waiting for. My audience was captivated.

The God who flung planets into space and kept them whirling around and around, the God who made the universe with just a word, the one who could do anything at all – was making himself small. And coming down…as a baby.

That’s what advent is all about.

The perfect to the broken, the holy to the unholy.

Jesus came.

Tonight, we will sing with countless others around the world that God with man is now residing. Somehow we will sing in unison; we’ll invite each other to come and worship, come and worship. We will light candles. We will dress our daughters in pretty dresses. Fight our sons to smile for pictures. Tomorrow, we’ll hug cousins and aunts and uncles. Laugh together, eat together, share together after we get the kids all settled in their sleeping bags or beds, wherever we can pile them all in.

Meanwhile, the needles from our tree continue to drop, and the trashmen will be greeted next week by bags of ripped paper. Credit card bills are on their way.

But, advent doesn’t just stop when the Christmas carols are no longer on the radio. I want an advent spirit. Lord, will you give me that for Christmas this year? An advent spirit? I want a spirit of expectation, to live in expectation, to live with watchfulness. It doesn’t have to be just for 24 days in December each year. I want it all year, everyday. Eyes that no longer hold my spirit back with only seeing the mundane but release my spirit with glimpses of the extraordinary.

I want to be one of the saints before the altar bending, watching long in hope and fear…everyday. Advent and Christmas at the culmination of it is just the booster shot I need.

Christmas 2009. Three Christmases ago. I was a wreck. We were so close to finding our new daughter. I just knew it would be a few weeks after Christmas.

And, that meant that though I didn’t know who she was or where exactly she was, what she looked like or how old she was. I knew she was. I knew she was somewhere across the world, alone for Christmas, what was her first Christmas.

And, though I was anxious and wondering and thinking all the time about her, there was something that gave me great peace.

God was there.

In Luke 2:6-20, Luke mentioned the manger three times. Why?

The manger was messy. It wasn’t what we picture–a wooden contraption with a sweet bed of hay. It was more like a box looking thing or basin made out of clay mixed with hay or stones and held together with mud. All kinds of food for animals were put in it, not just nice yellow hay. It was dirty, maybe moldy, smelly.

And, God was there. Very literally, God was there.

As spunky and full of life as Lydia is now, it wasn’t that long ago that she was in a pretty messy place. I believe her orphanage was one of the better ones–her needs were met and we’ve learned more recently that there were quite caring women who took to her there. There was a wall of windows with natural light in the room where she lived 24-7. In that room were 40 cribs and a few toys for all to share to pass the time. There were older children in that orphanage too, children we weren’t allowed to see. And, I wonder what their days were like.

I’ve heard a lot of stories–about adopted children who flinch when someone moves their direction in fear that they will be hit; children who were never held, children who have come to accept that no one wants to bring home a child their age, only babies; children who suffer significant consequences from not having the medical treatment they needed earlier.

And, yet, I believe God is there.

God is not only not afraid to get his feet dirty; He is about getting His feet dirty. That’s what advent is all about, isn’t it? God coming down, the perfect to the broken, the holy to the unholy.

Psalm 34:18 tells us He’s close to the brokenhearted–and there are so many right now. I can only imagine that He is very close indeed to brokenhearted children–here and there–whether they are aware of their brokenness or not. He’s there.

I prayed for our daughter 3 Christmases ago, that He would be close to her, that He would remain close to her. That He would be tangibly felt in that room where she slept. That He would wrap His arms around her when she was cold. That He’d rock her when she needed comfort. That He’d be in the manger with her.

I know He was there.

And, somehow, in the dark places of orphanages around the world, I can’t explain how or what He always looks like there, but I believe that He’s there. In the warmth of the sun pouring in the windows, He comforted my child. In the smile of a nanny. In the gaze of another orphan. In the provision sent by charities around the world. In her broken heart–emotionally and literally.

Somehow, He was there.

Now, as my children listen to us read about His story every night around our table, sneak Hershey kisses in their mouths as we make reindeer eyes, and use entirely too much scotch tape on crafts and wrapping paper alike, He is here…and, He is there, somehow making an unholy place, holy.

That’s what He’s about. That’s what advent is about.

photos courtesy of KC Photography

Advent {My Spiritual Booster Shot}

He is There

Categories

Recent Posts

She’s come a long way

Gift ideas for a happy-China-traveler-to-be

Follow Along!

Categories

Recent Posts