…For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment. (Frederick Buechner)
As I child, I couldn’t wait for the toy catalog to come in the mail! It was big and the pages were shiny and filled with toys! We would sit for hours pouring over the pages and marking things we wanted. If there would have been brightly colored sticky notes back in the day it would have looked like a flower with all of the colorful petals sticking out of the sides!
Oh how we dreamed of the coming days of fun…more fun than we could ever imagine. If only we could have all of the things we dreamed of. This went on for weeks and we would leave the catalog out in obvious places for mom and dad to see. We mentioned them in conversations around the dinner table, in our Santa letters and to Santa himself when we sat on his lap. The anticipation of Christmas morning and getting something from those magical pages… there was nothing else like it!
This year, the beginning of Advent reminds me of this. I’m beginning 25 days of reading through my favorite book by Ann Voskamp called The Greatest Gift – Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas. This will be my 5th Advent reading through it and I have more anticipation and excitement than ever before. I’ve let the negativity of the world and all that is happening right now get me down. I’ve let social media wear down my soul as I’ve spent countless hours reading and seeing all that others have that I don’t and all of the negative things that are making people feel anxious and angry. I’ve spent hours and hours looking out and not allowing God in.
So, today I’m giving myself a gift. The gift of Advent. Do you need to give yourself this gift as well?
So now we pause. Still. Ponder. Hush. Wait. Each day of Advent, He gives you the gift of time, so you have the time to be still and wait.
(A. Voskamp, The Greatest Gift)
Thoughts and Reflections on Life 