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By Karen Jones
"You aren't equipped for life until you realize you aren't equipped for life." Ann Voskamp
My goodness, how this speaks to me today! Advent is a season of realizing you aren't equipped for life. That's why we are waiting in darkness for the coming of the light. In some ways, I think we can't celebrate the season of Christmas without walking through the season of Advent. How can I celebrate the birth of my Savior without first coming to terms with the fact that I NEED a Savior?
Advent...these 25 precious days...these treasured few weeks of re-acquainting myself with my own frail humanity as I await the birth of God Almighty - as he floods into my humanity in the frailty of human form. I journey through these days taking a hard look at my own darkness, both imposed and self-imposed. I take inventory of my sins and my shortcomings and go down into the depths of my personal darkness and wait there...wait for the light to burst into the blackness of this place and thereby lift me out of it entirely. What an amazing and nearly forgotten time Advent has become in our culture. Maybe that’s why Christmas has become so mis-represented and mis-celebrated. Maybe if the world prepared itself in the darkness every year for the coming of the light, the true celebration of Christmas could once again take its rightful place.
Embrace the Season of Advent
Today, take some time to delve into the introspection that is Advent.
Take stock of your own human frailty and how dark it is without a Savior.
Then find a place to wait in the darkness for the coming of the Light.
When I think of waiting, it’s usually an irksome feeling; waiting in line, waiting for test results, or waiting in traffic and then adding waiting in darkness with my own thoughts and my own sin—well it’s sobering to say the least. Yet, in the understanding of not being equipped it changes my perspective. Waiting in darkness for light changes into a longing with hope. Light is coming. Thank you Karen, this is so encouraging.