Advent: Learning to Wait

Every few years, some kind of small appliance emerges as the latest and greatest holiday gift. From the Vegomatic to the Fry Daddy to the George Foreman grill—there’s always something that promises great returns for the home cook. This year is no exception. The latest craze? The Instant Pot, a countertop gadget that will cook food in a fraction of the time of other methods.

That’s not really surprising, is it? Nobody likes to wait. We get out of it whenever we can. We drive on expressways, choose the express lane at the grocery store, and pay extra for express shipping.

Like it or not, though, this kind of waiting is part of life. Slow-moving traffic or cash register lines might be irritating, but mostly they just try our patience.

Another kind of waiting, though, requires a lot more than patience.

Prisoners wait to be set free.
 Chronically ill patients wait to be healed.
  Refugees wait to return home.
   Separated families wait to be reunited.
    Those in danger wait to be rescued.

That kind of waiting takes courage—courage to remain strong and faithful, no matter how long the waiting takes.

The ancient Israelites knew a lot about that kind of waiting. Long promised a Messiah, they endured centuries of hardship. Siege. Destruction. Exile. Slavery. No wonder the psalmist sang:

“Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 31:24 ESV)

Hope is what fueled their courage: hope for the coming of the Messiah, hope for the fulfillment of all of God’s promises.

In the book of Lamentations we read:

I remember my affliction and my wandering,
  the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
  and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
  and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
  for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
  great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
  therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
  to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. (Lamentations 3:19-26, NIV)

The season of Advent is about waiting. As we live on this side of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, it’s easy for us to distance ourselves from the Israelites. We know that the promised Messiah came. With the angels we sing “Glory to God in the highest!” We live in the light of the Incarnation.

But in a needful and powerful way, Advent links our hearts to the hearts of God’s people who longed for the coming of the Savior. As we survey the carnage of a world wracked with sin, we pine for the second coming of the Savior, when everything wrong will be set right.

We watch. We wait. We long for the day when all will be well. Even now we run on the fuel of hope. And like always, hope comes from the same source. The Lord’s mercies are still new every morning. He is eternally good to those whose hope is in him.

From this hope we take courage. This Advent season, let’s encourage one another. Perhaps these words of Paul’s could be our prayer for each other: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13, NIV)

God, help us to wait with the sure knowledge of your steadfast love.

I'm joining Jennifer Dukes Lee for Share His Story.

Grace at Home No. 276

Hello and welcome to the Grace at Home party! I'm so grateful you're here.

Today is the last day of November! Can you believe that Advent is upon us, and Christmas is fast approaching? This year has flown by so quickly.

Here are some links from our last party that caught my eye.

Sheri from Hazel + Gold Designs created a rustic wood customizable Advent calendar. This is so clever: it's designed with 25 hooks to hold whatever you'd like to attach. Advent begins tomorrow, but if you'd like to make one you might have to start using it a little late, but it's still worth showing you.

Chas from Chas' Crazy Creations made a custom gift by transferring an old recipe card onto a dish towel. This fall I created a sentimental Christmas ornament from one of my mom's old hand-written recipes; maybe I should make a dish towel next! Chas gives step-by-step instructions for how to create your own.

Another easy Christmas idea came from Victoria at Dazzle While Frazzled. She decoupaged a doily to the bottom of a clear glass plate to create a darling cookie plate for gift-giving. Brilliant! See her post for full instructions.

Michele Morin at Living Our Days was inspired by Sharon Miller's new book, Free of Me, and shared some wonderful insights about making our lives about God instead of ourselves.

As for me, I shared what my Christmas decorating looks like in real life—and how I'm learning that it's fine for me to proceed in my own way rather than in Pinterest-perfect loveliness. I'd love to know what you think!

A big thank you to everyone who joined the last party!  I'm so grateful for each person who links up each week. If you've been featured, feel free to grab the "I was featured" button.  I'd be so proud if you displayed it!

Now for this week's party!  Grace at Home is a place for you to share anything related to making your home a place of grace. I invite you to link posts about

• DIY projects
• decorating
• recipes
• hospitality
• homemaking tips
• parenting
• marriage
• faith
• self-care
• soul care

Whatever you do to make your home a place of grace, I'd like to hear about it.  Here's what I ask of you.  Please include the permalink to your post, not your blog's home page.  Please let people know that you've linked up.  No more than three posts per person, please.  Note that if you link a post here, you are giving me permission to share your post, including a photo.  And visit at least one of the other party participants--that's what really makes it a party!

Real-life Christmas preparations

"It's the most wonderful time of the year!" Perry Como's voice singing those words is one of my favorite things. Thanksgiving is past, and now it's time to turn our attention to preparations for Christmas. How exciting!

Today I'd like to show you what I've already accomplished with decorating for Christmas.

Well, that's what I would like to show you.  The problem is, I haven't really accomplished anything yet.

It's not that I haven't started. I've managed to put up the tree in the living room:

And I can see from this photo that the tree is leaning to the right a bit, isn't it? Oh dear.

It's not that I'm not looking forward to decorating for Christmas. It's just that I am disorganized and messy. So here's the truth about my Christmas decorating so far:

That's my guest room at the moment. As you can see, the makings of my Christmas decor are currently strewn all over the place. A discerning eye might even catch that my Fall decor is still waiting to be put in the attic.

Now, here's how I want you to see this room, the way it looks when it's all fixed up for guests:



Actually, that's not quite how it looks. I stole a piece of furniture from this room, so things are a little different now. And I had to take out the pretty rug because the dog peed on it. So there's that.

It can be so tempting to try to present only magazine-worthy loveliness on my blog. And I do love to make things pretty and to share ideas. But over this past year I've found that presenting only loveliness doesn't sit quite right with my spirit.

You want to know a secret? A few weeks ago the city of Durham turned off my water. Why? Because I'd lost the water bill and didn't see the warning letter they sent. Thank God I could pay the bill, so my water service was promptly restored, but if you'd seen my house on that day without water things surely wouldn't have looked too magazine-worthy.

That incident reminded me of the time that a good friend told me that there had been a mix-up with her utility bill and that her gas had been shut off. I sympathized with her having to deal with this inconvenience, but secretly I wanted to jump up and down and say, "Thank God! I'm not the only one!"

Maybe you don't have any organizational issues. Maybe you're a person who is naturally tidy and put-together. If so, I admire you greatly. The truth is that I wish I were like you.

But here's another truth, one that I need to learn more fully:

God doesn't wish I were like you. He doesn't wish that I were like anyone but me. He loves me just the way I am. He'll take me just like this—piles of stuff, lost utility bills, and all. Certainly God wants to transform my heart so that I'm more and more like Jesus—but He still wants me to be me. The real me. And that's how He feels about you, too!

So here's to real life: the beautiful and the messy, the organized and the disorganized.

I hope that by next week I will have some beautiful Christmas decor to share with you.  For now, I'll just share this beautiful thought:

Tell me--are you the organized type? Or do you struggle like I do? Do you have "real life" scenes that aren't so pretty?  I'd love to know!

I'm joining these wonderful parties:

Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life

Share His Story with Jennifer Dukes Lee