From our archived blog:
Advent started this Sunday. I didn't grow up celebrating Advent, but in recent years I have seen how quickly Christmas sneaks up on me if I don't take time to slow down. I love the focus on seeing how God has been coming to our rescue, for His glory, from the first page of Scripture to the last. This year I am reading Ann Voskamp's book, mentioned above. It has brief readings and questions for reflections for each day, along with ornaments to create a Jesse Tree.Waiting. Advent. It comes from the Latin. It means "coming." - Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift
To brush past it, to rush through it, to not see how it comes for you up over the edges of everything, quiet and unassuming and miraculous - how every page of the Word has been writing it, reaching for you, coming for you. And you could wake on Christmas only to grasp that you never took the whole of the Gift, the wide expanse of grace. So now we pause. Still. Ponder. Hush. Wait. Each day of Advent, He gives you the gift of time, so you have time to be still and wait.
Our "upside down Christmas" Jesse tree.
God has been whispering the message of "waiting" to me since the beginning of November, so I am feeling this "hush" in a special way. I am trying to pray not just "Lord, come! Lord, move!" But "Lord, grow me into who I am supposed to be. Help me depend on you in a new way through this season."