Patiently Awaiting

“For you O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,

Truly my hope is in you”

On this, the second Sunday of Advent, my thoughts have turned to patience.  And not just because I am a week past my due date and attempting to be patient as I await the birth of my first child.  No, I’m thinking about the patience in which we are called to wait for the return of Christ.  He calls us to wait patiently, but not to wait idly. 

“Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;

he will prepare your way.

A voice of one crying out in the desert:

Prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight his paths.”

Do I spread the message of the Lord?  Am I preparing myself and others for his return?  What does this look like in the modern world?  Unlike John the Baptist, I am not called to preach in the wilderness.  But I am called to live my life in accordance with my faith, to be a living example of the message of Christ.  I am called to raise my child in a Christian household.  I am called to pray for my husband and to help him to be more faithful.  And perhaps this blog is also a way I can share the faith (later this week, I’m sharing my review of The Church and New Media, a book that can help all of us understand how we can be like John the Baptist, sharing the message of Christ through social media).

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Kaylene of Letters from Momma recently wrote a post about her Advent goals.  Although I’m a week late on this, I would like take inspiration from her post and make my own goals, not just for Advent, but rather New Year’s resolutions of sorts.  Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical year, and I want to make goals for spiritual growth in the upcoming year. 

In January, I chose a “word of the year” to concentrate on.  I chose the word obedience.  I feel that by focusing on just this one virtue, I was able to lay down a bit of my pride and become a little more obedient to God’s will.  Of course, this is still an area that I will continue to work on, that I will continue to need to work on, but I look forward to adding a new virtue to enhance.  So this year, I will be working on patience.  I am notoriously impatient (just ask my husband) and I feel like this is particularly harmful to my prayer life.  Sometimes, you just need to sit and listen, to be patient and let God answer your prayers in his time, in his way.  That approach has never really gone too well for me…

I don’t want to overwhelm myself with goals for this year, I know myself well and if I make too many goals, I won’t accomplish any of them.  This upcoming year, the goals will make themselves.  I will have to learn to be a mother and to balance that with being a wife.  So my second goal is simple: to go easy on myself.  I tend to be a perfectionist, at least in certain areas of my life, and I want to learn to let go, to enjoy life, and when I make mistakes, to forgive myself.

I hope your Advent has been blessed so far and that you continue to grow in faith as you prepare for the arrival of Christ!