Glorious Messiness and Hope

So...again, I don't have much to report on regarding The Well Project. I wanted, however, to let you know where my heart is here at Advent. Bless you all.


"It was thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away, but it is a visit that for all our madness and cynicism and indifference and despair we have never quite forgotten. The oxen in their stalls. The smell of hay. The shepherds standing around. That child and that place... this story that faith tells in the fairy tale language of faith is not just that God is, which God knows is a lot to swallow in itself much of the time, but that God comes. Comes here. "In great humility." There is nothing much humbler than being born; naked, totally helpless, not much bigger than a loaf of bread. But with righteousness and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. And to us came. For us came. Is it true- not just the way fairy tales are true but as the truest of all truths? When you are standing up to your neck in darkness, how do you say yes to that question?... You say it with your heart in your mouth... He visited us. The world has never been quite the same since. It is still a very dark world, but the darkness is different because he keeps getting born into it....”Frederick Buechner.

Every time I read the above I am caught by it’s divine inspiration. There is no way a man could write something that makes me stop in my tracks without being part of the breath of God. I keep reading it over and over and trying to figure out why it is so meaningful to me. I think it is the contrast and the detail. The smell of hay and humility…and all is forever different because He keeps getting born into it. The hope. The glorious messiness and hope all at once.

This has been an interesting advent for us. I am expecting our fourth child. Due any day. I go to sleep at night wondering if this will be the night that I wake up in labor. Every morning I wake up thinking that today is precious somehow because soon all will change. All will change in a beautiful way but with hardship. Everyone with a new baby knows that like I described Buechner’s rendition of the birth of Jesus, it is full of both glorious messiness and hope. Birth is a messy process taking much endurance. There is nothing more hopeful than the smell in the crook of new baby’s neck. And the joy, the deep, deep joy of meeting this new little person. It is breathtaking.

This morning is particularly striking that way. We woke up to snow. Beautiful, thick, heavy, clean and bright. My children seem especially delightful and my husband especially strong and kind. It’s like because I know that I will be having another focus soon, I can see them a bit clearer. And because I am “waiting” all is a little stiller than normal. I am not out planning and doing because I don’t know if I will be in the hospital or at home. I take each day as it comes. And the pace is sweeter and there is more room for rest and thoughtfulness and fun.

And I do think of Mary. I think of what it must have been like for her. Did she do the same thing in greater measure? Did each day seem particularly wonderful to her because of the change about to make her life topsy-turvey. What was it like to be expecting the son of God? I wonder if the incredulity of it all kept her eyes heavenward? Or when she woke up each morning did she breathe a sigh of relief that she at least had one more day of normal? When she got kicked in the ribs or couldn’t sleep because of Jesus’ activity in the womb, what kind of tenderness did she imagine him with?

And then I also wonder about God’s heart. What would it be like to be God waiting to reveal the greatest rescue in the oddest package? Was it one of those magnified moments of anticipation….like when I can’t wait to see the face of one of my kids because of the genius of a present I’ve gotten them? Or that secret smile you wear when you are about to tell your spouse that you are indeed pregnant? Or the settled satisfaction when you’ve done something incredible physically…like run a marathon or climbed a mountain? Are these glimpses of the heart of God in his anticipatory yet all knowing glee in giving us such a gift? Some days I so wish the veil between us was less than a breath. I can’t wait for the day it will be.

So, I leave you with these thoughts of mine. Imagine God in his anticipatory glee, Mary in her tender expectation, and Jesus in his strange baby power waiting to be born into our world to rescue us from ourselves and bring us to the heart of God.

Let’s allow our dwelling here to tell the story that he indeed continues to be born into this world of ours…