We have been in Advent for weeks now and I feel like I am just getting to it. Advent is a season of waiting before the celebration of the Lord's birth. We are waiting both for Christmas, the celebration of Jesus coming into the world, and thinking ahead to the anticipated return of Jesus in glory.
I have been thinking this week about the business I want to start yet something (Christmas) seems to be getting in my way of getting started. As I realized I need to wait until after the holidays to really start anything I realized how bad I am at waiting. Waiting is a skill to be mastered not an innate ability.
We have lots of gifts under the Christmas tree right now. And it is killing Isabelle! Especially the one she wrapped up for me. I don't know what it is, I suspect she wrapped up something already in the house or maybe it is a painted picture she made. But almost every night she begs me to open it. She brought home something she made in school all wrapped up and would not move on with her life until I opened it. I managed to get her to wait one night but that was it. I thought it would have been nice to enjoy her wrapped gift under the tree a few days but there is no anticipation in her world. We live in an instant gratification society and my daughter is definitely a product of that world.
But while I know how to wait for Christmas presents to be opened I am not much different. When I get an idea I want to start it NOW. And I want to be at the end of the process immediately without going through the steps and building things slowly.
Last spring right before I started working I blogged about waiting as well. As I re-read it I feel very similarly, like something is about to start but right now it is all on hold. I am no longer waiting for John to start school or me to start working. We are no longer waiting to see what happens with John's dad's cancer but are now waiting for him to die. We will be waiting for John to finish school for several more years yet the action of doing it makes it seem a little less dramatic. And in the midst of Jake heading toward the end of his life in my home I really want to throw on the brakes more than get it over with.
Now I am waiting to start the next stage in the transition from homemaker to working mom. Of course today is the 23rd of December. Only 1 more day left of Advent and then we move into the season of Christmas and the celebration of Christ's birth. Once I felt released from my need to "release" I wanted to immediately move into the next stage and get to work but I see now that I am in a waiting stage before the new year and I am going to try to embrace it. I am spending time with the Lord, letting Him prepare my heart and mind for what is ahead, and celebrating the gifts He has given me through His Son.
"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I do hope." Ps 130:5
Grace is the same way with the gift as Iz. And i am like you, i can wait for gifts but anything else is hard. I look forward to learning what is up your sleeve. We can always b reminded how fast the wait really goes when measured in dentist and gyno appts and children growing up!
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