The days fly by and the nights crawl.
I worry. The To Do list of things I need want to get done before our boys arrive from Eastern Europe is growing, not shrinking! Every day I think of another thing I should do to make our home as welcoming and comfortable for them as possible. Buying their toiletries, getting their room ready, making sure I have foods on hand to which they are relatively accustomed. Sorting, folding, hanging the donated clothes we received!
And then there’s Christmas. I’m less organized and less prepared than usual. Not swamped. Not going crazy. Not even joyless. Just a few more Christmas things still to do on my list than I had hoped by December 11.
But then when it’s time to rest for the night, my body is ready but my mind is not. It keeps on rushing. Going through my mental checklist, worrying if every item there has made it to the physical checklist. Worrying if they’ll get their visas. Worrying if the children who live in my home will be as welcoming as I hope to as these children who don’t have a home.
But more than worrying, I’m wondering about the boys. Where are they right now? Are they excited or afraid? Will we be able to communicate? What is their story? Will they like us? Will we like them? Will I ever be able to pack them on a plane and send them back across the ocean to danger and neglect without my heart breaking in two?
So, these days of waiting tick by. Not enough minutes to accomplish my work by day, not enough sleep by night. And I think, as I always do at Christmas, about the biggest waiting game of all.
The whole earth, hoping, groaning, waiting–for what? God’s timing. God’s time to accomplish what the prophets foretold and for which all faithful people had hoped. The “fullness of time.” The exact generation, the exact young woman, the exact town, the exact instant when our Messiah would come to this worrisome, wondering, waiting planet and redeem it.
That instant, history changed. God’s silence ended. The Word of God that said, “Let there be light!” was heard in the cries of a baby. Oh the miracle! Joy to the world–the Lord has come!
Mary’s last few days before that first Christmas must’ve felt much like mine this year–waiting, wondering, and worrying. But when the fullness of time had come, and she looked into the face of the Son of God–and her son, how amazed she must have been.
And so today, I’m comforted to remember that the God who made Mary and me also made time. And He spends it perfectly to perform His mighty works–right here, in my time. His work in me. Christ in me. Oh the miracle! Joy to the world–the Lord has come! So I sigh, and smile, and go on.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Galatians 4:4-5