Advent season...

So, my girls and I are going to do Kari Denker's The Promises Advent Study together.  I think we will try Jaquie Lawson's Advent app again (this year it is Sussex!) - we had a lot of fun with that last year.  I am pulling out my Christmas picture books this afternoon (I am a HUGE fan of picture books at any and every age) and I am joyfully spending most mornings listening to Christmas music, sipping a hot cup of cinnamon coffee, while enjoying my cinnamon stick candle...BLISS!

As we embark on the season that anticipates Jesus' coming, my heart is a bit unsettled this year.  It hasn't been one of those cataclysmic years (like 2020 that just about took us out), but it has been a very, very looooong year with lots and lots of hard days as almost constant companions.  Being a mom to kids (now mid to late teens/young adults) with special needs and chronic medical struggles is so, so hard.  

Balancing the needs and meltdowns and struggles is truly both beautiful and difficult.  

Beautiful because there is nothing in this world I would rather do than be their mom (and my husband's wife - I love my husband so much - he is awesome!).  But it is harder navigating days that are both unpredictable and heavy with a patient and kind heart than I every imagined it would be.  Difficult because it is so hard to walk beside someone(s) you love so much and watch them struggle and be able to do very, very little to change that.

I have also been surprised by the season of grief that hit me hard...grief knowing this isn't what life is "supposed to look like", grief in knowing that nothing changed magcially as they got older (in other words, they didn't suddenly grow out of any of their struggles), grief in knowing their lives are very different than they expected/hoped for them to be, different than their "friends" and that is just hard.  It is.  No matter how much we remind ourselves not to compare our lot in life with anyone else's (and that is very true!), it still is hard.  

And I have been surprised by my tendency to want to draw the self-pity around me like a thick quilt.  I have had to battle that with consciously taking stock of all that I have to be thankful for.  It is so easy to see (at least for me) all the hard, I miss the joy, the gift, the treasure tucked right into that hard.  God does not leave us to figure this out all by ourselves, I don't know why I forget this as often as I do?!?!  His faithfulness is ASTOUNDING.  I mean when I start listing all of the ways He has met us just counting and remembering from February 2010 when we woke up to one of my girls having a massive seizure...it is truly - there is NO other explanation for it than God.  He is SO SO SO SO faithful and SO SO SO very good.

So, as we enter in to the season that remembers and waits with joyful anticipation...I want to set aside the year and all that it was and wasn't and just joyfully look for Jesus.  I want to lay down all of the hard, I want to lay down the grief and self-pity, I want to lay down the unmet expectations...and just simply soak in Jesus.  Because when it is all said and done, whether life resembles an old fashioned Christmas card or looks more like a train wreck...all of that truly isn't what matters.  At the end of the day the only thing that matters is this :  Jesus.  It is all about Him, all for Him, He is in everything, and over everything.