- igNation - https://ignation.ca -

Advent is – has been – Difficult

Advent is … or rather has been difficult for me over the years. I just paid lip service to it. My challenge was best summarized by a priest friend who said, “Maria, you are just not an Advent person.” He was referring to my classic “A” type personality, my impatience with waiting, wanting everything done at lightening speed, yesterday, if possible.

My ability to wait, has greatly improved, due in part to two significant periods of time in my life. Enjoying just “being with” my mother as her care partner, in the last six years of her life, and my recent experience of “being with” cancer and the recovery process, both have greatly enlightened me as to the potential for growth in periods of waiting.

It was just pointed out to me that waiting and “being with” are contradictory terms. “ Being with” implies that the waiting is over. You are already living in the moment.

So for me this year, Advent is … a time to “be with” Jesus who already lives in me and I in him, to “be with” Jesus who has lived within me since I was conceived, and to “be with” Jesus who will one day welcome me with open arms, as I enter into his eternal home.