New on Trochia: Waiting with Joy and Hope in the Advent Season
“Grandma is coming!” “Santa is coming!” Children are great anticipators, and are easily swept up into awaiting “comings” with joy and enthusiasm, sticking little noses against frosty windows and bouncing up and down with excitement on Christmas Eve. We can learn something from a child’s excited anticipation in this season of Advent.
The word Advent is actually an anglicized version of the Latin word “adventus”, which means “coming”. It is a season of waiting and expectation, of looking hopefully like little children watching for grandma’s headlights or Santa’s sleigh.
We can learn from children because as we grow older, we forget about the joy of the coming, and focus instead on the long and painful wait. We wait for the weekend, for medical test results and important phone calls. Waiting is tedious and what we wait for isn’t as magical anymore – it’s much less fun to wait for our tires to be rotated than it is to wait for Grandma to arrive.
This is why I love Advent, and the Christmas season. Because it reminds me that our waits can be holy and hopeful, full of joy and anticipation, not simply a long, boring, often painful season.
– See more at: http://www.trochia.org/hope/waiting-with-joy-hope-advent-season/#sthash.sox6WgMv.dpuf