As Advent approaches, I am beginning to realize just how much I desperately need His arrival anew in my heart. Strip everything away - all the glittery adornments we plaster everywhere to distract from the ugliness - and we are left with a lowly infant. A Savior. And we all need saving. Every day.
And I really want a home this Advent. A home where Jesus resides and isn't lost in programs or political power plays. Somehow, I have been tainted, ruined even. I have entered into rows of pews and steeples high, pointing to heaven, but You weren't there. I have walked down isles flanked in the most elaborate stained glass, but there was no light. I have watched, almost helplessly, as those in your clothes, your God robes, abused their power. Conversely, I have seen congregants, pious to a fault, abuse those whom You called to serve them. I have walked out of a fellowship hour because it has now become acceptable for old ladies to badmouth their pastor in front of strangers, in front of the those who need grace. And no one stops them. And we have become the hypocrisy. And my orphaned-heart continues to break.
I'm no theologian, but I know that we have it so wrong. And I am struggling to keep trying. I enter new places like one who has been abused; one who has seen too much. I subconsciously look for the cracks and signs of impending doom. Surely, it all will come crashing down {it always has}.
Sigh. I know it can be different. I have seen the miraculous things that grace has birthed. I have experienced true community with others. And yet in this season, it eludes me.
So I pray and wait. Because Advent, and all that is promised therein, is coming. And everything within me cries maranatha.
