Thursday, December 5, 2013

Anxiously Waiting

Well hello blog that I never use.  I thought we'd never meet again.

So for some reason I feel like I am supposed to write down a few thoughts.  This makes me a little bit nervous because I am not a writer.  That would be my husband.  He is the writer, not me.  With that in mind, get ready for some great grammar/spelling issues.  If you are an English teacher, look away.  However, sometimes God places things on your heart and you have to get them out there.

This is Christmas time, pretty much my favorite time of year.  Every year I get all excited about the decorating, the parties (good Lord, there are some many of those), the Santa thing, the presents, the nursing home visits...all that good and really fun stuff.  This year has felt really different.  I can't really understand why.  I have this anxious feeling inside.  As a mother, I am thinking alot about Mary.  You know, Jesus' mom.

I am thinking about how miserable she must have felt right about now.  Now I know this is not the exact day she was 37 weeks pregnant, but since this is the time we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, then we are thinking his birthday is on the 25th so that means she is miserably pregnant about now.  She is looking for a place to have this kid.  I don't think she had a birth plan all written out and I don't think she had her birth kit and midwife all lined up either.  I'm pretty sure she was headed out of town with her man.  I'm assuming she was anxious.  Not just about the impending birth of her child, but about the fact she was about to birth the Savior of the world.  I've been trying to jump inside her head and I can not fathom her anxieties.  Knowing Mary, she was resting in God's soverin plan for her life.  That's probably why he choose her.  I bet her faith in God was incredible.  Her pregnancy alone was a complete miracle as God placed this baby in her womb.

Skip ahead a few thousand years.  Yesterday was December 4, 2013.  That was a highly anticipated day.  A good friend of mine was awaiting results to see if her invitro fertilization had worked or not.  We knew that the numbers were not looking good, but we prayed.  A village of us were praying, pleading with Jesus that she could get pregnant.  Many fasted for her.  Lots of tears and prayers were lifted and guess what?  She's not pregnant.  Devastating.  Infertility.  Injustice.

On the same day a dear family to ours was asking for prayers for the son they will soon adopt in Ethiopia.  Yesterday was the day that this little boy was going to loose his life long friend to a family that is adopting him.  My friends back here are anxiously awaiting the day they can take their boy home, but until that day all they can do is pray for him and his heart.  They couldn't be there to tell him it's going to be ok.  That they are coming for him.  That this is all a part of God's greater plan for him.  That he will see that little best friend of his again because they are friends with that little boy's new family.  They see it, but he can't because the timing isn't right yet.  We are all so anxious to meet this boy and to squeeze him.  I bet not a day goes by that my friends don't think about their boy who is on the other side of the world.

Back up a few more years to December 4, 2009.  That was another big day of anxiety.  Getting pregnant didn't come easy for us.  It was a long, long, dark and scary journey.  I felt entitled to get pregnant.  I figured since no one in my family ever had issues getting pregnant then I wouldn't either.  I had a plan.  I had it all figured out when I would have a kid.  I remember telling my best friend Kristin how I was going to space out all my kids 2 years apart and have all three by the time I was 30.  I bet God was laughing so hard at me.  Oh stupid 25 year old Jennifer.  If you only knew what was about to happen.  It didn't happen that way.  It was hard and I hated it so much.  I didn't understand it at all.  However, on December 4, 2009 I found out I was pregnant.  All of a sudden my eyes were opened to a plan that God had laid out for my family.  It was so clear that this was the time.  This was the baby that He had me wait for all these years.  It had to be James (my son), not those babies that were never conceived years and years ago.

So as I sit back and think about Mary and think about my friends and my own journey, I am amazed and in awe of God's hand in it all.  I don't know why God choose Mary.  I don't know why my friend isn't pregnant today. I don't know why my friends can't just have their little boy in Ethiopia at home for Christmas this year.  I also don't know why I wasn't able to have three kids by 30.  I don't know why things happen the way they do and I'm glad I don't ever have to.  I know that God is good.  I know that we are all anxiously awaiting the "what's next" in our lives, because it's always there.  The anxiety of the  unknown.  This year I am choosing to rest in His soverign plan for my life, just as Mary did so many years ago.  Although she must have been scared, she knew what needed to happen for Christ to be born on that night.  The waiting was almost over and the time had finally come.  It wasn't her plan or her timing, but His.

So we wait and we anticipate the arrival of Christmas and the arrival of our King. It was the perfect time for him to enter the world.  Oh night divine.  Oh night when Christ was born.