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Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A season for anticipation.


Meet Caroline Mallory.

 

A beautiful soul. A dear friend. One of the most adorable people anyone will ever meet.  And the biggest Christmas lover I know. She agreed to share some of her words on Christmas with me. I hope you thrive off of her perspective as much as I have!

From Caroline:

I have always loved Christmas. I look forward to it the whole year and anyone who knows me knows that I go crazy about it. I am one of those people that start a countdown in August. I listen to Christmas music in July. I carry around my Christmas coffee mugs all year round, and I know every line to “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The Christmas season has always brought carols, twinkling lights, sugar cookies, the smell of pine throughout my house, and family descending to fill my home with laughter and chatter. Over the last couple of years though, Christmas has begun to change me. The more I saw and experienced brokenness in me and around me, the more powerful Christmas became. The familiar carols that I had been singing my whole life finally captured my attention, the words sunk in and I stopped singing them out of habit.
            As my heart began to change, the season of Advent became very important to me. Advent is a season where I feel the presence of God more strongly in my life than any other time. I can feel it all around me, and it’s almost palpable.  Advent is about waiting, patience, and anticipation. Every year on Christmas Eve my mother used to say as she tucked me in, “the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner it will be morning!” But it never worked and I would lay there for what seemed like hours, imagining what the next morning would hold. That kind of anticipation is the same anticipation and excitement that I have during this Advent season. Advent is about having hope and believing that this brokenness will one day end.  Advent is about celebrating what has come, and what is to come. It is about Jesus, the Creator of the universe coming in the weakness of an infant, and entering into the brokenness.  Advent is a reminder of the depth to which God loves and delights in me because He gave up the majesty of heaven to experience pain, betrayal, and humiliation, all to save me. Christmas is where the story of redemption and the defeat of sin and death begins.
 I know that we live in a fallen world and that not everyone has good connotations with Christmas. For some of you Christmas is filled with stressful family situations and you are relieved to come back to school. Or perhaps for some of you Christmas means a crammed calendar of endless Christmas parties full of forced merriment. Or maybe the thought of Christmas fills you with cynicism over the consumerism of America. Or maybe this year you have lost something or someone and everything will be different. My heart hurts for you, because Christmas isn’t supposed to be painful, it’s supposed to be filled with joy and peace. But the thing I love about Advent is that it offers something more than false cheer: it offers hope.  Advent says that the King has come, that he was “born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth” and he will come again to take away our pain. “Chains shall he break…and in his name all oppression shall cease.” This darkness will not last, because the Light has come. He is making all things new and Advent gives us a chance to step back and remember His promises, see His faithfulness in our lives, and anticipate the fulfillment of what is to come.
I’ve been clinging to these words:
 
 O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice!”
 I feel captive, and the pain of living in this broken world is sometimes too much to bear. But Advent stills my heart, letting me rejoice and see that there is so much good around me.  If you are facing a difficult Christmas, my prayer for you is that you would have hope in this season, that you would experience God’s presence in a powerful way, and that the Incarnation would break through the busyness of this season and give you joy. Be still, take time to rest, meditate on the Christmas story. Let the power of those words wash over you as you prepare to leave for home. Let the truths of this season refresh your soul. Immanuel has come, “Christ with Us” has come.
“For to us a child is born,
   to us a son is given,
   and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
   Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
 Of the greatness of his government and peace
   there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
   and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
   with justice and righteousness
   from that time on and forever.”

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