For this moment:
Even if the wait
Carries on another year,
I will not get where I am going
Without first learning
to be here.
— Morgan Harper Nichols
I am a doer. Like most hallmark personality traits, this is a blessing and a curse. I like to be kept busy, for better or worse. At its best, it’s a way that I can communicate God’s love for others, and it brings me great joy. At worst, it’s a means by which I numb and avoid my own unmet needs and unresolved issues.
This year of waiting has left me feeling very exposed. The pandemic has created more expansive gaps of financial, emotional, and physical needs, but I have been hesitant to serve by leaving home to fill them. I have also been too self-centered and myopic to figure out how to stay home and fill them. I am often left restless and wanting. Without the buzz of a full schedule and the associated busy thoughts, who am I? Without the busyness, where do I turn next for fulfillment of my longing heart? More importantly, what does this say about my relationship with God and who I believe Him to be?
In early October, I went to ShopRite and noticed the usual candy displays in orange and black cardboard boxes. I had a burst of excitement! Then I realized that a 2020 Halloween would not be like the rest. As I unpacked the bags at home, I joked with my housemates that I planned to put up our Christmas tree. (Who cares!? All of the rules are out the window this year anyhow, and it will bring us joy!) Ultimately, I gave into pandemic-related malaise and didn’t. I didn’t realize it until then, but I had been longing for the Christmas season for months. As I write this, I think it’s because it reminds me that God's promise of a birth of a new, more promising, better time is coming.
I can’t remember a time where so many are so weary. The remembrance of the birth of Christ is always a thrill of hope and a moment to rejoice in a weary world. Whether we acknowledge it or not, He is the hope, the identity, and the rest that our souls long for. My prayer for each one of us is to rest in that truth.
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23