Low.
the weight of waiting // advent series, week two
Last year brought me low in ways I can’t wrap words around. There are tiny glimpses tucked into posts and captions, but the vast majority is unpixelated. Partly because sometimes there just literally aren’t words. Partly because integrity is worth more than the quick relief of spilling the tea, and although it would honestly feel really good for a minute or two, the quick relief would turn to regret. And partly because to do so would just give back what I’ve received, would return mean for mean—and let’s be abundantly clear: I’m (obviously) no saint. Sometimes it’s uncomfortably tempting, but I decided that if I get to choose the kind of return, the one I want most is this:
“I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust ate… You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied. You will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. My people will never again be put to shame.” (Joel 2:25-26)
In October of 2023, I started a new note on my phone, wrote the two lines below, and then closed it out. I didn’t tell anyone, didn’t share it1, just wrote it down like a dare, like an offering, like a testimony—and then I kept waiting. Watching. Longing. Hoping. Weeping. Wondering.
There’s a verse that says God will restore the years that the locusts have stolen.
This has been one of those years.
Close friends who walked 2023 with me described it as an earthquake, a wildfire, a hurricane, a tsunami and a tornado—each without knowing someone else had used similar words. Basically? My ‘word of the year’ for 2023 was “rejoice” and it turned out to be the year of natural disasters, the year of learning our joy in Him is not misplaced, the year of declaring “even if not, You’re still good” all over again. (Be careful what you write a book on. Kidding. Kind of. ;)) And I did. I learned and I wrestled, I hoped and I declared, I wept and I believed, and 2023 became 2024 and I’m writing this sentence from the actual floor where I knelt and cried and asked God for a miracle… because there’s one thing I feel like I need to say here, now, on this second Sunday of Advent:
God will meet you in the low.
Last week we talked about silence, about the heavy weight of a long wait. And we talked about hope, about prophecies fulfilled and promises coming to pass. Both/and. Silence and promises, hope and heaviness. My pastor preached that morning on the strangeness of God’s faithfulness, how absolutely upside down it can appear even as it proves true at all times and in all ways. A sovereign King in a manger? A Savior crucified on a cross? Strange. And faithful. “Advent expresses our longing for God’s promises to come to pass,” he said, “and Christmas reminds us that they will.”
Amen, and thank God for God, and also: hello to those of us who are on the floor.