It’s Advent.
Often times I note how my moods do move with the seasons. Christmas is my most darling of holidays but in recent years it has been filled with a bittersweet sorrow. It will never be the same again. This is a fact of my life. I say it not for sympathy but to state the obvious. It is still beautiful because the glorious point of this and the upcoming seasons sing strongly within me. There are moments, however, where the rejoicing is hard.
This is where having Advent is a great blessing. This is a season for reflection and meditation. It is a time for penitence. I don’t have to rejoice the entire way through. I can just be. I can crawl up into my bed early in the evening and shed tears over my Bible. I can think about the sorrow that comes with this season for me. In it I still see the many blessings that are gifted to me and rejoice for what is coming. I know it is there. But for the moment there is darkness.
The beauty is that seasons always end. Some sooner than others and for this I rejoice. Grief is always present. It is always there but there are so many days where it takes a back seat and I rejoice in its absence. It is with great thankfulness that I view my life for I truly have been blessed among women. I am cherished beyond anything that I will allow myself to believe. The emotions of thanksgiving and love fill more of my days now than do grief and for that alone I am most thankful.
As I go through the days of this Advent season I reflect that I am blessed. I have been brought through. Grief has not been allowed to be the song of my life any more. Healing comes stronger and stronger day by day. I am drawing closer and closer to what I was created to be as each and every day moves on.
This Advent I find many reasons to repent. I do find reasons for sorrow. I do feel losses. I am confronted yet again with my desperate need for a Savior and my utter dependence on Him for absolutely everything.
In all of this I do know is that this season heralds something greater. On the 25th of this month I will celebrate for the 27th time in my life the greatest gift that was ever given. I will celebrate the birth of my Savior. I will be home with my family for this. I will be with dear loved ones and feel the embrace of those who I have missed more than words can say.
So, for this moment I feel loss and pain. I sense my grief. I remember. I will pray. I will sleep. And tomorrow I will wake up again by the mercy of my Savior to realize that His mercy is new every morning and His sustaining hand is beneath me. I will do the work that He has called me to do and say that it is good.
Christmas will come and night will be banished once again. Christ will shine out and the world will celebrate His coming with a beautiful gusto. We will rejoice together in our salvation. We will move forward knowing that we are saved by the exquisite and all-consuming love of a great and powerful God who left everything to become everything to us whom He calls to love Him.
And on that day I will sing out with joy of the love that came for me.
Unconventional Womanhood 