Advent series update

This month has flown by like a blink and despite all my best laid plans to do a series of Advent meditations, I only managed to eke out a grand total of 4 posts. Funny enough, when I had the idea to do this series, I wondered if it wouldn't be better to just do posts for each Sunday of Advent. Then I reasoned that if I kept things short, I should be able to churn out a little something each day.

I failed to remember just how busy of a month December can be. I don't know why I forgot this. It's not as though I haven't been through several Decembers in my life. I think I was just feeling overly ambitious! Whatever the reason, I think this year I have learned my lesson! If I decide to write on Advent next year, I'll confine it to Sundays. Y'all hold me to it, okay?

Christmas is almost upon us and the time for preparation of our hearts is almost at an end. Until Friday, we light our candles and wait beside the still empty manger, breathless with anticipation of the arrival of the Word Made Flesh who comes to dwell with us until the end of the age.

Meditating on Advent - Day 4

I'm a little behind because yesterday (12/2/2015) was a struggle with energy. My brain was so tired that I was having difficulty following discussions in a Facebook group I help administrate and during a thoughtful discussion my hubby and I were having after we got the girls to bed. I was sluggish and tired all day and just couldn't get it together. Anyhow, here's my thoughts on yesterday's gospel!

Yesterday's Gospel: Matthew 15:29-37

Jesus summoned his disciples and said, "My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way." The disciples said to him, "Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place to satisfy such a crowd?"(verse 32-33)

In this season of Advent where we are waiting and preparing for the birth of Jesus at Christmas, we may find ourselves wondering amidst all this preparation if we will really make it to Christmas. We may wonder if there is any way we'll get it all done or worry that we're rushing through Advent without adequately preparing our hearts or we may have so much to do and places to go that we wonder if we'll get to Christmas without losing our minds altogether!

Here's the message: even while we are waiting and preparing for celebrating His birth, He is here with us even now. He is here and He is providing what we need. We are so much like the disciples, I think. They had no hope that there was any way that all these people would be able to be fed given the sheer number, lack of supplies, and deserted location. What's wild is that they even asked Jesus such a question. Verses 29-31 of this passage from Matthew show Jesus healing people of all kinds of ills and deformities. In fact, verse 30 says "great crowds came to him" and that "he cured them." The disciples had witnessed all these miracles and yet, they lost hope when it came to food.

Isn't that SO like us humans? We see all kinds of amazing things, but when we get hungry or tired or hot or cold, or inundated with too much to do, we lose hope that God is able to provide for those needs. I love the phrase that Shakespeare uses to describe all the frustrations of our earthly existence as "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to." It's so true though, isn't it? This mortal life isn't an easy one and because of the sinful fallen nature we inherited from Adam and Eve, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that God doesn't just do amazing and fireworks-worthy miracles like curing an incurably blind person or turning several gallons of water into the best wine. He works smaller miracles in our everyday lives like giving us an extra push of energy when we think we have none left so that we can do what needs to be done or providing a friend to spend time with when we are feeling lonely and low or finding a sale on something so that we can give our children Christmas presents and still buy groceries to feed the family.

So when you get frustrated during this season of waiting and preparing, remember the feeding of the four thousand here in Matthew. Remember that even as we wait, He is here and He provides.

Five Minute Friday: Rise

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here.

 

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It is my first Christmas Eve in Pennsylvania and I am standing alongside my eventual mother in law Balinda as she makes her traditional Christmas buns. I can smell the warm yeasty dough as she pulls it from the oven in its bowl and feel a little frisson of happiness as I watch her punch it down and then pull it from the bowl to make the buns. That little action of punching down the dough and then watching it rise again is one of my favourite things about working with yeast.

A pan of Balinda's yummy buns all finished! Makes my mouth water just looking at them!

Yeast is a living organism that feeds on the sugar in the dough and gives off carbon dioxide which, of course, causes the dough to rise. The great thing about yeast is that they are insanely resilient little things. You can freeze or refrigerate them and they just go dormant until you add warm water and sugar to get them awake and ready to eat again. There is something so satisfying about watching them bloom and then the resulting rise you get once they're incorporated into the dough. And then you get to punch it down -- fwoosh! fwhiff! -- and watch it rise again, ever so slowly. I love to see the puffy rolls once they've been formed and risen a bit in the warmth of the kitchen.

I'd like to say that I have some amazing way to tie all of this into a faith related lesson, but I don't. I've had a lot of trouble this week rising high enough to function in my day to day life, but that is the nature of things for me right now in this season of my life. Some days and weeks are easier than others. So instead of a lesson, a little memory and a few thoughts on baking. Hope you enjoyed it.

Since I'm talking about baking...what is your favourite baked goodie?

Join in the Five Minute Friday fun and link up at Kate Motaung's blog!

A Further Update: Finally Home!

I've wanted in the last few days to write something terribly profound in my blog, but the last few days have prevented me from writing anything at all because I've only had my phone to use. I can blog from my phone (and my last post Update was written and posted from my phone, but it's much harder since I'm limited to my smartphone's keyboards which are not very conducive for speed of typing. As it is, I think faster than I can type, but it's nice to be able to at least keep up with my thoughts a bit better using the conventional keyboard on my laptop.

Merry Christmas!

Just a short post to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

Anticipating Jesus and M2

Today's blog post is a part of The Advent Blog-Hop hosted by Beth Anne at her blog Beth Anne's Best! Go check out the other blog entries in this series. Happy Advent!

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In December of 2006, I was in full anticipation mode as we were awaiting the birth of our eldest child, M2, in February. My due date was February 5th and I was getting more excited by the day. We had elected not to find out her gender because I wanted to be surprised, which only added to my excitement. As the days of Advent rolled by, I bought presents for Gray and our families and decorated our Christmas tree. I had been doing some preparation for the baby although we didn't have the crib or many clothes, but as we still had about 7-ish weeks to go, so I wasn't worried. This proved to be a mistake. On the night of December 19th, my water broke around 11pm. After a lot of drama (the entire story is a doozy!) and a very rapid labour, M2 was born just after 3am on the 20th at just 33 weeks, 2 days gestation. To say that we were surprised was an understatement. We had not been anticipating this. 

M2 at about two days old in the NICU. I was smitten with her from the moment I saw her!

Like me, Mary was anticipating the birth of her first (and only) child. In today's gospel reading, Luke 1:26-38, we have the story of Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she had been chosen by God to bear Jesus. We often get caught up in the awe of her submission to God's will and her "yes" to God and we forget that she was a woman who was with child -- like many other women before her and since then. It sounds like a simple thing to recall, but I think we sometimes get lost in all the excitement over who Mary is and certainly who Jesus is that we forget about the very human condition she found herself in as she waited and anticipated His arrival. As we know, Luke goes on to mention her visit to Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45), but have you ever wondered about the rest of the time she was pregnant and the events in the days leading up to Jesus' birth?

Visitation by Philippe de Champaigne

Obviously, there are no documents that exist which might tell us about this for her, but I can tell you what I believe. I believe she was like every other mother-to-be in many ways. I believe this because I am a mother too. M2 is my eldest, of course, but she has two little sisters as well and they are three very wild but very sweet little women. All three of them are so dear to me and have blessed my life in innumerable ways outside of the womb, but the blessing and joy that I have received because of their lives began before they even made their appearance into this world. There is nothing that quite compares to the myriad of emotions that a woman experiences upon learning that she is pregnant. There may be shock, relief, fear, panic, apprehension, elation, joy, excitement, and anticipation. I know I experienced most of those at varying times during my three pregnancies, but the one that I remember the most during those months between learning that I was pregnant and each delivery is anticipation.

If you think about it, the 40 weeks of pregnancy are one big ball of anticipation. Everything you do is driven by that feeling because in the end, you are anticipating something -- the birth of your child. You take care of yourself, visit the obstetrician, buy baby items, and take classes in birth techniques or parenting. Even your thoughts are filled with anticipation as you contemplate baby names, share your news with others, dream about what your baby will look like, wonder what gender it will be, and worry about whether or not you'll really be up to the task of caring for this new little person. In this way, I think Mary was just like the rest of us mommies. True, she had a heads up on the gender and name, but I can imagine the rest of it was pretty normal.

I can imagine she probably gazed down at her rapidly growing belly and began to wonder if Jesus would have St. Joachim's nose or St. Anne's smile. I'm sure she, along with her female relatives and friends, made the swaddling clothes that she wrapped Him in before laying Him in the manger (Luke 2:7). I have no doubt that there were times that the enormity of her consent (Luke 1:38) to allow the Holy Spirit to overshadow her must have weighed on her as she pondered the task of protecting, nurturing, and raising the Son of God. There is a very popular song that I hear a lot on the radio at Christmas called "Mary, Did You Know?" that asks several questions about Mary's understanding of who this child she was entrusted with really is. I believe that she absolutely knew during those 40 weeks of waiting quite a lot about who this child was going to be (my dear friend and fellow blogger Mark Shea actually wrote a fantastic piece about this song in a FAQ format that goes through the various questions the song asks and answers them with verses of scripture). She had been told much of this by Gabriel and yet, she still consented to participate in God's will for her life.

The Annunciation by Philippe de Champaigne c. 1645

Today is my beautiful M2's 8th birthday and I am still full of anticipation. It is not anticipation about her name or gender or what she looks like, but more about who she will become as she gets older. As I anticipate the celebration of the Nativity to come in a few days' time, I am using these last few days of Advent to ponder what Mary must have been anticipating both as she was waiting for Jesus to arrive and as He, as the scripture says, "grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon Him." (Luke 2:40). She knew so much of who He was because of what Gabriel had told her, but like all mothers, I know she still had questions and wondered.

Me with M2 at her class  Christmas party just a few days ago.

May we all enter into these last days of Advent with a sense of anticipation of His coming -- not just at Christmas but His Second Coming at the end of time and so prepare our hearts to receive Him in these days of celebration and for all eternity.

Another little update

Christmas is fast approaching and I have SO much to do -- hence the not posting in like a week. Also, I've been feeling a lack of inspiration of late too and struggling with my depression some too. Sometimes when it rains, it pours...

All that said, I've got a post that's almost ready and will be posted on Saturday. I'm participating in an Advent Blog Hop and this is my contribution! I hope you'll enjoy it. I'm going to try to write a bit over the next couple of weeks, but I'll be with family some, so I might not have as much time for it.

Peace to all of you and yours!