How a Messy Advent Prepares our Hearts for the Savior
My intentions were good this year. But reality is the house is a mess and the family is irritable. Advent season was easier when they were little, when all of them were home at night and dinner was regular and life was less hectic. But with kids spread across a large age span (5-15), the Christmas season looks a little different, mainly the consistent advent readings as a family. When they actually happen, it’s all over the place.
When big emotions are a family affair and hurtful words are exchanged, trying to manage and see PEACE ON EARTH is exhausting. This happened yesterday and I escaped to regulate myself, to say my truth phrase: “I can be okay, even though my kids are not right now. I can be okay because I know Jesus is here. He approves of me. His grace is my report card. He is everything I need.” As I looked at the dead flowers on my dining room table (leftover from Thanksgiving), the toppled bottle brush tree, and the string of messy lights I heard God speak.
In the messy advent I’m preparing your heart for the Savior.
Mary must have been tired, stressed, and experienced big emotions, just like me.
She probably expected something different than to birth the King of Kings in a stable after riding on a donkey for an extended period of time.
But reality was different.
But one thing she held on to: God was with her (Emmanuel).
The Savior, her deliverer, was coming. (God with us)
I wonder how much of my despair can be reframed into one phrase: God with us?
Maybe the broken pieces of my scrappy advent efforts are God’s way of revealing the broken places inside that need my Savior?
My efforts pointing to my own self righteousness that He so longs to fill?
Striving to get my desire for love, intimacy, and right relationship through trying to control when all those things are already promised in Christ?
Maybe God calls us to live in that broken and messy advent space, allowing Him to see us as we are: in dire need of the Savior. Our Prince of Peace. Our Rescuer.
Where is God calling you to lean into your messy advent? What longings do you have that He alone will meet? He is the joy of every longing heart.
