'tis the season

You know what feeling I love best?

Anticipation.

Unfortunately, I don't think I do anticipation very well as an adult. With children, it's easy to spot: the bright eyes, the wide smiles, the cannot-be-contained energy. They literally don't know what to do with themselves until the expected day or event arrives--and it shows.

But adults? We seem to temper ourselves. We maintain an appropriate level of excitement. The anticipation may threaten to leak out everywhere, but in general, we keep it under wraps.

However, this is the season of anticipation: Advent, in which we await the birth of Christ. I didn't grow up celebrating Advent, with the calendars or the wreaths or the candles, but discovered it in college: first, with the Book of Common Prayer in Renaissance Literature and then, at Life Church, where I began unpacking the concept of holy anticipation.

As a woman, it's especially meaningful to me that Advent begins with a woman in the most intimate moment of her life. I love the language of the Magnificat, and as gorgeous as the first line is in Latin--Magnificat: anima mea Dominum--I appreciate the simplicity of the Book of Common Prayer:

My soul doth magnify the Lord : and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded : the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth : all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me : and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him : throughout all generations.

He hath shewed strength with his arm : he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat : and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel : as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.

So Advent begins with the announcement of a pregnancy. (No, really.) A pregnancy that was dangerous, a pregnancy that should never have happened, an impossible pregnancy, really. Mary is so strong in her vulnerability at this moment. But if we limit Advent to the joyful anticipation of the birth of Christ, I wonder if we've missed the bigger picture:

Advent is really the anticipation of the arrival of Israel's salvation.

Perhaps we don't have a clear concept of that kind of anticipation: Waiting. Thousands of years of waiting. Patient waiting sometimes, but mostly impatient waiting. Groaning. How long, O Lord? Come quickly. Questioning. Has He forgotten us? Perhaps our God won't make good on His promise.

See, anticipation isn't just bouncing our knees, arms outstretched, smile on our face. It is that, but it is more. Advent is joyful because we know that He does arrive, and He does ransom Israel. But it's also messy. It's impatient people, unworthy of rescue, crying out to God to be saved, maybe even doubting it will happen. As the years stack up, and generations stretch out, perhaps it becomes the stuff of legends, like that story your grandpa tells you're pretty sure isn't true. It just seems so unlikely that the waiting will ever end. That God will ever remember you.

And then it happens. The promise is fulfilled.

Doesn't that make the shepherds seem so much more genuine? Imagine the young men, who doubted it would ever happen. Imagine the old men, whose hope was maybe a little more real. Imagine the small boys, who would never know the lifetime of waiting all their forefathers knew. The fulfillment was right now. It was here. It was real.

That is Advent to me. It's so much more than the excitement of pregnancy. It's the culmination of years of that quietly-whispered hope and those tender prayers. So Advent is anticipation: joyful and messy. Isn't that just the story of our whole lives?

Magnificat: anima mea Dominum.

my thanksgiving was better than your thanksgiving

It's the end of the month of gratitude. Many of my friends have been participating in the 1000 gifts project, taking the month of November to list 1000 gifts from God. Consider this my contribution to the project.

I'm grateful for spending Thanksgiving with my family in Colorado, and for sledding together in the Rocky Mountains:

I'm grateful for cousins crazy enough to marry into our family:

I'm grateful for newly engaged cousins (!):

I'm grateful for toboggan rides that start out promising:

but end in whitewashes:
(let's be honest, I really did miss this in Nigeria)

I'm especially grateful for the strong women in my life, from whom I can learn so much:

I'm grateful for the community of friends, old and new, that God has built up around me, to encourage me and keep me on track.

I'm grateful for a job that fits my gifts and passions, and one I will learn and grow in.

I'm grateful for this stage of life, however in-between it feels, and for the lessons I'm learning in the process.

i'm not that kind of girl

Let's get something straight: On the wide spectrum of femininity, I am more of a girly-girl than a tomboy. It's just that I'm just not that far left of center.

The most recent piece of evidence was submitted Friday. The church I grew up at hosts a women's Holiday Tea each November. The women of the church sign up to host and decorate a table, and a formal teatime is served. It is a pretty spectacular display of the feminine ingenuity of the women of that church, let me tell you. I haven't been in several years and it gets more elaborate each year. Last Friday, I was half-expecting a waterfall. Or two.

I definitely appreciated the event and the hosts who dedicated so much time to their tables. But as Mom and I surveyed all the tables with their place settings and fine china and knife rests (knife rests!), she asked me if I could see myself hosting something like that someday.

(There we are...yep, I look like my Mom.)

I was honest. I said no, thus fixing myself at the place where "painting our nails" meets "screaming at the football game on TV."

I am a girly-girl. I do enjoy attending holiday teas, and eating scones, and placing my soiled knife on my knife rest. I went shopping for a fancy dress this weekend and loved every second. I even curled my hair this afternoon.

It's just that I don't get a thrill from the prospect of owning fine china or hosting a formal tea someday. I guess a girl has to draw the line somewhere. I guess I'm more practical when it comes to dishes.

I discussed it with my Dad, who was the Tea's most adorable server. I said something like, "I enjoy this, but the elaborate business...it's just not me." To which he lovingly replied, "You're such a cynic...don't worry, you get that from me."

(Oh, the bow tie. And the teapot. Precious.)

i have a knack for embarrassing myself

Just because y'all are special

and just because it's my hundredth post

and just because I'm feeling generous and more than a little self-deprecating

but mostly just because I write whatever I want on this blog anyway....

Tonight, I'm going to tell you a story.*


Once upon a time (because that's how these things always start), there was a well-meaning girl with a heart of gold and honest intentions. Sure, sometimes she did brainless things like accidentally resending text messages to an ex-boyfriend, or losing her keys in a restaurant and not realizing it for approximately 7 hours, or oversleeping twice in two weeks, or even keeping an absurdly overemotional online journal throughout her early years of college.

But truly, this girl meant well. She tried to do the right thing in loving God and loving people. She tried to encourage them and point them back to a gracious God. It's just that sometimes she did stupid stuff.

Or, rather, does stupid stuff. Still.

Because this morning, this girl with the good intentions was supposed to get up at 5:15 to take her wonderful boyfriend to the airport so he could go spend the holiday week with his sister and his college friends. And she really wanted to be a help to him and getting up early on her day off was the least she could do. But even in that, she failed.

Due to a number of outside circumstances including, but not limited to: not going to bed early enough, setting the alarm for PM instead of AM, and--lest we forget--leaving her phone in her desk at work, our little Miss Congeniality failed to wake up until 7:15am, which was more or less the takeoff time for her boyfriend's flight.

Kai.

Thankfully, Mr. Wonderful made his flight, due to a great friend who has proved, once again, that he is great at coming through in the clutch. Not to mention that Mr. Wonderful has been nothing but gracious and forgiving about the whole mess. Which makes our well-meaning girl feel a bit less terrible.

But only a tiny little bit.

*This story may be my measly attempt at penance.

when impatience gives way to homesickness

I had a very impatient moment today, in which I thought (though, thankfully, did not voice) very irritated feelings about a woman at the post office. When I caught myself in that not-very-nice thought pattern, I thought to myself, How very non-Nigerian of me, reminding myself once again that the thing I miss most about Nigeria (besides the people) is the person I was when I was there.

The thought prompted me to pick up the journal I kept in Nigeria. For context, the following was written the day I left for good: June 17th 2010.

That's it. That's all she wrote.

I'm 5000 meters in the air and there's no going back. Literally--no visa, no ticket, no going back.

I wish i had the right words for this moment. How crippling and gutsucking it feels. How conflicted.

I want to cry. I want to cry so bad. I want to mourn this place, these people, and who I am around them.

I want to beat down the doors and go back...

I want.

I wish.

I want.

I just want to go home--but where is that anymore? Surely I'm at home in MN, in Wheaton, too. And surely I feel at home at Plot 1079 Opposite American School, Durumi, too.

How long, O Lord?

How long will it be until I feel at home again? How long until I find a way to adequately express my intense longing for 2 places?

I love you, God, and I trust you.

But I don't trust myself and this feels a lot like the wrong decision.

Help.

That portion is followed by an unsent letter to a friend. Next is this:

I'm watching the sun rise over France and listening to my iPod's Relaxed playlist. Fitting, no?

A few thoughts:

- I have a plan. God has a plan. My plan doesn't matter.

- Man makes plans, but God determines his steps.

- God is still who He is no matter where I am.

All this circumstantial evidence to the contrary does little to convince me that this plan in leading me away from Nigeria is designed to do anything but rip me apart.

Lord, help me make sense of this decision, and if not, help me be at peace about it.

While I still struggle with these restless feelings, I would say I am more or less at peace about being in Minnesota for such a time as this. My main struggle now is feeling caught in the in-between, between the right now and the future, between the where I am and the where I'm supposed to be.

This tension feels a lot like what Wheaton taught me about the kingdom of God as the already and the not yet. I think I was made to live in that tension. It's just not a very comfortable place to be.