This year, in an effort to lean in to the call of the Advent season, to really prepare my heart for the coming of the Lord, I am taking a blogging break. I hope you enjoy my reflections from last year.

I was in latent labor with my youngest for almost three weeks. I went into the hospital over labor day weekend because I felt like I was in labor. They sent me home, but it scared me enough that I decided to stop going to work an hour from my home and midwives lest I be that girl who gives birth on the side of highway 400. Besides, this baby was coming any second. My baby came on her due date three weeks later, September 20th, only because I went into the hospital still contracting, but not seriously, and refused to leave until my midwife broke my water against her better professional judgement. Thankfully I did not blog through all of this. My Facebook posts from that time are pathetic enough.

There is this thing that people say to you, when you are hugely pregnant and completely miserable. They smile at you and say, “well, no one stays pregnant forever!” Which, I suppose is true, but it still makes you want to smack them. How, do they know you aren’t going to be the first? But of course, you aren’t and then you have this hilarious one year old toddling around and you laugh at the whole thing. It becomes a one-up story for the times you are at parties with other moms,” oh yeah, I was in labor with that one for three weeks!” Hilarious! You forget how hard that waiting was, just how much work it is to wait for something you are completely sure of.

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

We lost my grandfather this last Tuesday. My sisters and I will be singing “Blessed Assurance” at his memorial service this coming Saturday. We are mourning the loss, but my family has a peace about it that can only be described as supernatural. Death has a way of bringing you face to face with your beliefs.

Do I really believe this? Do I really believe that the God of the universe came down as a baby to give to the world the gift of eternal salvation just 33 years later by his death on a cross and resurrection from the grave? Do I really believe that my grandfather’s belief in this story, my belief in this story, ensures that I will see him again?

Turns out, I do.

Angels, descending, bring from above, Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

I do, and I believe that the universe has been echoing this story of mercy for as long as it has existed, from the birth of babies made the standard way, to the northern lights.  I have been hearing these echoes and whispers this week as I hold back the grief until I can get out of my classroom and with my extended family.

Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

It is a hard reminder that we live in a fallen world, death. But even as I tell the students who have caught me crying that it is sad, but happened the best way possible I can feel the twinge in my spirit. This was not the original plan. And I hear the echo, you will get to see him again. Not just him but my grandmother on my mom’s side we called Grammy, my great grandmothers I only have the faintest memories of, my cousin Rachel. We will be together one day.

We are 38 weeks pregnant with hope.

So we wait. Watching and waiting, our postures spell out the hope that we have. We look above, knowing that there is something more. It is a posture I have seen in the bodies of the people who have lost the most. They also have the most to hope for.

Lately, this waiting feels like work. I often think of hope as a light and fluffy word, but there is a deep weight to the truth of its promise. There is a work of a heavy burden getting ready to push its way into this world. It is hard, it is slow, it is painful. But this world is not forever, no one stays here forever, which is as beautiful a sentiment as it is a terrible one.

Sometimes hope is delightful, but often it is hard, and painful, waiting for something you are completely sure of. But then, it is here, it is beautiful and wonderful and perfect, this thing that you hoped for was more than you imagined and the waiting fades into a distant memory.

This year, in an effort to lean in to the call of the Advent season, to really prepare my heart for the coming of the Lord, I am taking a blogging break. I hope you enjoy my reflections from last year.

This December has been unreasonably unseasonably warm. I was sitting on the porch discussing my grandfather, the life he led, the ways we will miss him, with my sister when dusk came. I was surprised it was getting so dark so fast. The weather tells me it is early September. The sunset has other plans. I went inside a little disoriented and looked at the clock on the microwave. Surely I missed bed time…nope, just that time of year. Simply not enough light in the day.

When the term “modern-day prophet” crept into my thoughts so did the sounds of the street-preachers I have become familiar with. First there was the guy my dad was friends with. Brother Richard used to pray for healing over the phone if he called the house and we answered, sick from school. I don’t remember meeting him, but I do remember his voice, soft and rich in my ear. My dad used to say you could see the remnants of the glory of the Lord on his head.

The street-preacher I have the strongest memories of is Pastor Neal. He used to stand outside the theatre department and hurl fire and brimstone at the homosexuals and the fornicators just trying to buy a ticket to the university’s next show.  I went to his church once, “The Revolution,” where he preached a beautiful sermon filled with the grace and love of our God. I wonder now, why he saved that message for those who already had it, and hurled the condemnation at those who had yet to experience the grace.

The darkness creeps up so quickly these days. It is enough to disorient me, the darkness of this world. But the Prophet’s job is to shout into the darkness, light a candle in the abyss of the night, promise that dawn is coming, and point to the light that is already breaking in. It is hard and lonely in this wilderness, and sometimes I need to be reminded that what I proclaim matters.

If I pray every Sunday “on earth as it is in heaven” if I believe that God has more for this world than what we’ve already got, then I am a prophet of hope. As the advent season continues and I lean into the waiting, I don’t want to wait silently in the dark. I want to point to the dawn, the promise of light to come.

This year, in an effort to lean in to the call of the Advent season, to really prepare my heart for the coming of the Lord, I am taking a blogging break. I hope you enjoy my reflections from last year.

I have a lottery ticket in my top desk drawer at work. I bought it a couple of weeks ago when the power ball was at a record high. I don’t know why I keep it, but I have not yet been able to throw it out. I feel like it symbolizes something. Or maybe I just keep hoping that I read the numbers wrong, or there will be an announcement about a consolation prize. I know that this is silly, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw out that ticket. It is worthless and empty, the kind of hope the world tells us is available. Maybe, what if…, someone has to win, why not me? Ending in not you, maybe not, someone did win but it sure wasn’t you. The hope the world sells seems to leave one or two with way too much, and the rest of us with worthless slips of paper.

Last night, after the girls went to bed I re-lit the first advent candle and read the guide I had been given by my church. I sat in my dining room, with one white candle lit (the only ones the Kroger had) and prayed through the guide. I sang the suggested song, and tears ran down my face.

“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to you oh Israel”

Last Sunday Jill came over to borrow some paintbrushes and told me that my grandfather had been rushed to the emergency room. This Sunday my dad called to let me know that they had made the decision to stop restorative care. Every time the Peanut sees me crying she climbs into my lap.” You sad mommy?” She asks, “You sad?” I tell her I am and she pats my back. “Is okay mommy, daddy come and give you hugs.”

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to you oh Israel.”

Emmanuel, God with us. This is not an empty hope. It is not a ticket that some people win from and most people throw away. Even in my dining room, with the wrong color candles and my Grandfather slipping away on the other side of the country, I can rejoice. Emmanuel shall come to me, He shall come to my family. It is a certainty. There is hope eternal. God is with us. Hallelujah.