Waiting For The Truth

Anticipation is making itself known in my life right now in many ways. This time of year has this effect on most people, for one reason or another. When I was young, I spent weeks excited about getting to open presents. My sister and I even slept under the Christmas tree the week leading up to Christmas just to have fun chattering under the twinkling lights well into the wee hours of the morning. Now, for me, this time of year is special in a different way. I get to watch my children and my nephews experience the magic of this time of year. I recently read an article comparing Advent (this season that the Church anticipates the birth of Our Lord) to those last, miserable weeks of pregnancy, and because I was in those shoes a mere 2 months ago, I remember vividly the absolute discomfort and dare I say it "hatred" of one's condition during that time. Yes, the miracle of new life is beautiful, but it comes with great cost to the mother. The author of this article was talking about how her nervousness about delivering her child subsided as her discomfort with her gravid state increased. It was an "I'll take anything but this" sort of attitude; a "gut me like a fish, and it will still be better than what I am feeling right now" sort of attitude. To those mommies who LOVED being pregnant until the last day and can't relate to this, bless you. I still don't think you are human, but bless you.

To me, this was the perfect way to illustrate how we as a race are doomed to experience life without the saving grace of Our Lord.

In order to be saved from ourselves, we must first become so sick and tired of the mess that we have made of things, the hopelessness of our condition, that we can no longer bear it. Our culture today teaches us to love ourselves and to celebrate our imperfections. While I do think that it is healthy to love yourself and not let other's opinions of you chip away at your self esteem, I also think that this attitude is so detrimental to a person of faith. There is a reason that we feel dissatisfied with parts of our lives. Christ is saying "You are not perfect, but I have come to make you perfect." Instead of hedonistically celebrating these imperfections (which are many times sins) to create a mask for ourselves which appears happy, but really isn't, we should be striving to hand those confusing/embarrassing/hurtful parts of our lives over to Christ so that He can show us His redemption, and that we can learn how to be truly joyful in Him.

This is LOVE.  Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10

How do we love each other?

We mirror the actions that Christ showed to us, to others. We don't celebrate when we see them sinning or pat them on the back. It isn't love to show support to someone who is straying from our Creator. It is love to speak the truth to them (in kindness, of course).

We all have to be reminded from time to time that as much as good as we can get at rationalizing things, it is not the standards that we have set for ourselves that lead us to salvation. Christ came to save those who were lost, but how does that work if no one actually realizes that they are lost?

We all must seek the Truth, not only during this Advent Season, but throughout all the year. As families, as faith communities, and as friends, we must spur each other on to seek the fullness of Christ's truth and to proclaim it loudly in our actions and words.

Merry Christmas!