Longing ...

That's what this season is supposed to be about and usually is. We long for our family to love and enjoy each other and want to be together. We long to not fall prey to gluttony. We long to feel all warm and cozy inside as we sit around the Christmas tree. We long to finally feel whole--to achieve real happiness. This season is about longing, but are we longing for the right things?

On Friday night as I babysat my nephews, I was so touched by how amazed the little one was by the Christmas tree. I would find him standing by it just staring at it. When I took him upstairs to put him to bed, he pointed to the tree, and we walked over. I said, "Do you want to say goodnight to the tree?" He nodded and said, "'Night, twee." What genuine awe and wonder at something of beauty; how easily we are seduced into believing that the thing of beauty is the answer instead of the question.

Somehow I find that as I scour malls and stores in search of the perfect gift, I have to fight the belief that things or people are the answers to my longings. No matter how wonderful my time with my family is, the reality is that we are all sinners, and I most likely will be disappointed on some level. The kids will fight and cry, and the adults will feel stressed and tense with all the traveling, gift buying, and entertaining. No matter how many great presents I buy or mochas I drink or holiday movies I watch, it doesn't give me what I really need to fill any emptiness I find in my soul. This is Advent season, a season of anticipation. A time where longing should be recognized and embraced.

This Christmas my goal is not some super-spiritual thing of giving up presents (I like giving and receiving them) or saying that all I will focus on is celebrating Christ's birth and dismiss the consumerism and materialism that is so rampant around me. This Christmas my goal is to live in the longing and to see it for what it is ... a call to worship my Savior with my life all year long. How will I do that? One day at time. I'm fighting my urges to buy, eat, read, watch, or socialize away those feelings that overwhelm me. How am I doing? Some days better than others, but in some ways, I feel that actually being honest with myself is half the battle.

"...all earthly homes produce as much longing as satisfaction, are signposts and not the city itself. And I thank God for both the foretaste and the vague yearning that keeps me headed homeward, keeps my heart on pilgrimage."
-Andree Seu

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
-Romans 8:22-25