Waiting...

"Anticipation lifts the heart."

We look forward to celebrating Jesus' birth, but think of Mary and Joseph's time of waiting. Maybe they were excited about a new baby as the months passed by, but I always think that the fear, the uncertainty, the shock, and even the shame they may have felt would often have outweighed the happiness.

"Though the protracted waiting time is often the place of distress, even disillusionment, we are counseled in the book of James to "let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete." Pain, grief, consternation, even despair, need not diminish us. They can augment us by adding to the breadth and depth of our experience, by enriching our spectrum of light and darkness, by keeping us from impulsively jumping into action before the time is ripe, before "the fullness of time.""

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. (Psalm 130:5)
(God With Us, p. 78)