What Advent Means to Me

I’ve been in the hospital again.  This time I didn’t tell many people, it was humiliating to be asked to stay after doing so much work when I was let out less than a month ago.  

Humiliation is painful and can be soul sucking …

What will God do with me now?  

Has my potential been eaten by the disease that dogs my steps every day of my life?

I really don’t have answers for those questions right now.  Right now my priority is doing everything in my power to heal, but healing can’t be forced.  For someone like me who strives to do everything perfectly, there is a tendency to try to do recovery “the right way”.  You don’t “win” at recovery, you just do it …

  … slowly.

Christmas will be Spartan in our household this year.  The financial stresses that have been created by my 2 surgeries and 2 additional hospitalizations, along with prolonged recoveries attending all 4 events, have left the household budget stretched as thin as an overinflated balloon.  It doesn’t need to follow that Christmas will be depressing for us.  I’m trying my hardest to make sure that doesn’t happen.  We will approach Christmas differently, more intentionally, hopefully with an emphasis on the true meaning of Christmas – The Christ Child.

What more appropriate focus for me this Christmas than the child who embodies hope?  I struggle now with the idea that I may never work full-time again.  I spend at least ½ hour each day crying about my lost potential.  It is impossible not to think of these things, but when I contemplate on Christ and his humble beginnings, I can’t help but hope.  He was born in a dirty shed with animals surrounding and one of the most powerful men in the world desperate for his destruction.

Yet he not only lived, he grew and thrived.  He amazed the rabbis in the synagogue.  He took Jerusalem by storm.  He was only stopped when HE decided it was time, and then he had a bigger plan in mind.

How can I cry and be despondent when my Savior has this kind of power?  He could heal me in a moment, but then I remember Paul with his thorn in the flesh.  I know God doesn’t cause illnesses to happen, but in his wisdom he can make any affliction bend to his will.  This is where my hope lies.  What will God do with me in my humbled condition?  I am his and I want what he wants.  If this means I continue my battles with “the beast”, I will.  I trust that he has something beautiful that will come from my suffering.

Christmas this year is magical for me, not in the traditional way, but in a deeply personal way. I still struggle to come to terms with my infirmity, but I have remembered that I truly am a daughter of the One High King.  He will not leave me, he will not let me be destroyed.  That is an amazing assurance for a person who fears being destroyed by their own hand.  My God will not leave me or forsake me.

Oh, Come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.