The waiting game.

Here we are roughly half way through advent. We are waiting for the coming new life that brings God down to earth to live among us. Our blessed mother seems to take this wait much more graciously than me. I am impatient and by the time I was as pregnant as her, I was chewing at the bit. I wanted to meet this exciting new life I had created. Ahead of the arrival my growing new life was the adventurous unknown, being a beached whale not so much.

Here we are on the cusp of a new life, exciting and unknown. We might know the story of by heart, we might think we know what is coming. However as we wait, reflect and listen each year to the coming Christ child we are different. A whole new years worth of life and experience that affects how we listen and respond to the coming new life. When I was a child I was eager for the arrival of Christ, for the advent calender to end, for the feast to come and ultimately the presents to be opened (one year I even managed a 2am stocking opening after going to midnight Mass). Patience really never has been my strong point. However I have got better at it. While the child deep inside me is still desperate to celebrate, decorate and feast, the adult in me wants the time to go a little slower. I know that the expanse of waiting gives us time to prepare for the coming, for it is never as we expect it. 

We expect the story, the food, the family, the tree and the presents. We now expect God to arrive as a vulnerable child. What we do not expect and sometimes do not even listen to is how this vulnerable child arrives in our lives this Christmas. We need to prepare not just our houses, but our hearts. This time is a blessing, because receiving new life into your life is not always easy. Those of us that have had children know that as amazing and miraculous as this baby in our arms is, it is hard work over the rest of our lifetime to nurture that life. Christ comes to us as a new life, a small child. His arrival in our lives and hearts, is not just that instantaneous moment of joy, it is that hard slog of commitment and work for the rest of our lives. 

There is much vulnerability in the lives around us. There is pain, fear, depression, poverty and wars. How we prepare and listen this advent, effects how we respond to these and how we see Christ in our lives. The Christ child came to give us the most miraculous of gifts and all gifts are best shared. Now in this time, prepare to listen, prepare to respond and be prepared to share the rest of your life with Christ.