Making Room

When I was getting ready to head home for Thanksgiving this year, I was keenly aware that unlike the times when I’d go home over college breaks, this year I would be returning not to my house, but my parent’s house.  I’d been back to visit my parents before, but at the time, they were in the middle of remodeling the kitchen so we didn’t actually stay IN the house. And, since I took the bed and all the other “Alena” things from my room with me when I moved, my mom decided it was time to repaint my bright green and yellow room a very relaxing, but very un-Alena grey and convert what once was my room into the guest room.  So as I drove, I tried to prepare my heart for what it would be like to not have a place of my own in the house I grew up in. 

However, when I got home, after the multiple rounds of hugs and kisses, my mother pointed me, not to my brother’s room as I had expected, but to the old guestroom where she had (in her words) “made me a little nest” complete with floral pillow.

We’re currently right in the middle of Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas and the first season of the Christian church year. Advent means coming. Coming--as in due to happen or just beginning, an arrival or an approach. While I doubt I was ever explicitly taught it, somehow through all my years growing up in church “Advent means waiting” had been burned into my mind. Not coming. Waiting--as in the action of staying where you are or delaying action until a particular time or until something else happens.

If you know me at all you know that patience is not my strongest suit, so to me Advent, this season of “waiting” always seemed a little silly.  But this year, when I heard this familiar phrase “Advent means coming” I finally started to understand what this season is really all about.

You see, Advent isn’t really about waiting at all, it’s about preparation. In the same way my dear, sweet momma prepared a place for me to come home to, we are to use this season to prepare for the coming of Christ.  My mom could have sat by the front door waiting for my brother and me to show up, but instead she went to work making sure that I would still feel welcome and loved, something that required action on her part. (That awesome floral pillow did not magically show up at my house y’all.)

During Advent there tends to be a lot of discussion about slowing down and “making room for Jesus”. Maybe that’s you. Maybe you’re finding yourself feeling drained and overwhelmed, the chaos of your life amplified by the added activity of the holiday season. Maybe for you, your preparation is slowing down. Taking time to rest so that you can enjoy time with the one who has come to dwell among men.

But then maybe you’re like me and have wrongly associated patience with passivity. I don’t know about you, but I find myself waiting for a lot of things right now. As I mentioned before patience is not my strong suit and so this season of my life has been particularly frustrating. It’s so tempting in seasons of waiting to sit back and pout and do nothing. …except maybe complain or throw a fit, until we get what we want (or think we want). 

But what God’s been teaching me is that waiting, that patience, is NOT a passive act! Being told to wait isn’t always a timeout, but often an invitation to engage and be present where we are. Our waiting should be charged with intention and eager expectation. The eagerness of a mother waiting to welcome home her children, the anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve.