Anticipation...

Carl Larsson (Swedish Realist Painter, 1853-1919) 

Lisbeth with Yellow Tulip

(doesn't she look like she's waiting for a baby to come soon?)

This particular Advent Season, my family and I are waiting for a baby.  To me, it is a prayerful, hopeful anticipation of the day we know is coming soon.  In these last days of our daughter's  pregnancy, I awake each morning and think, "This could be the day.  Perhaps we will get a phone call."  Every week I see my daughter as she goes to another doctor's appointment, heavy with child, and the realization becomes more and more clear and evident --she is one day closer to her delivery.  The waiting and wondering and concern for health and well-being will be over, and we will be glad that the child is born.  We will touch and smell, we will cuddle and coo, we will smile and bless, and praise God that the child is with us.

Until that day, we pray and watch, anticipate and prepare.  As we wait for a new life to be delivered to us, it reminds me that this should always be my mindset and my hope in Jesus.  I remember well one Christmas Eve long ago when we were singing Oh Little Town of Bethlehem in church.  When we came to the verse that says, "Be born in us today," my heart melted.  As a mother, I knew the oneness I had with a child living and growing inside me, and I knew the exhausting work of labor and then the joy of delivering a child.  In that Christmas hymn, God showed me how very near He is and how near He will always stay.  

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts, the blessings of His heaven
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!

(A Pause in Advent)