Advent Waiting

Lighting my advent candles tonight I found myself deeply yearning to light the fourth candle and the Christmas candle.

Today I feel incomplete.  Things didn't go the way I planned or assumed, and I feel beat up.  I'm longing with all my heart for the certainty of joy, for Emmanuel ("God with us").

'What will it hurt if I light all the candles and pretend that all is right in my world?' I think to myself.  And because I'm that kind of crazy, I answered back...or maybe it was the Holy Spirit cautioning me:  "No, there is something better for you in the waiting, in the way you become strengthened from holding on (possibly for dear life) with fully extended arms to the end of this rope."  

This is what it feels like to have muscle fibers tearing intentionally in order to build muscle....only it's not my quads or triceps, it's the spiritual and emotional muscles of my heart.  

So I'm gazing on these three candles that symbolize Hope, Peace, and Joy.  

And I slowly drink in their healing 

...because waiting is impossible without hope, uncomfortable without peace, and not worth it without joy.