The baby has the flu and the two year old wont stop throwing up. The older four kids are restless and I feel the weight of not pulling Christmas cheer off for them. There is Jonny's colonoscopy tomorrow and my surgery on Wednesday. An ovary not doing what its supposed to be doing, cysts that wont leave and the waiting and groaning continue.
I think of Mary, and that cold, dirty barn where she labored. I wonder if she felt alone and scared and abandoned by the One who created this miracle. I think of what Advent really means, a waiting, a groaning for the appearing of what our hearts are longing for. Only the ones who have suffered and waited and been afraid can know all that advent means. We will not make it if You do not show up, we will be consumed if You do not save us. Prayers are reduced from phrases and lists to a gutteral cry for help.
I remember that there has been darkness before. The 400 years of slavery in Egypt, the hundreds of years of waiting for His birth, the darkness of waiting after His death. And He always comes, He always shows up. The time of waiting is not indefinite, the suffering will not continue forever, this will not be all you know. Because the cold, lonely darkness will be pierced by a cry, and whatever she was feeling up until now will be forgotten, lost in the glory and the joy and the light.
