Advent. waiting. pregnancy.

I'm really excited about this post. This comes from Becky Lobo, Mac alum, and a really dear friend and sister of mine who is EXPECTING HER FIRST CHILD! So she has some really cool things to say. Read on :) 


This year, the first Sunday of Advent marked for me not only the beginning of waiting for Christ, but also the first day of my third trimester, in this 9 month journey of anticipating our first child. I thought that was pretty great.

I’ve always had a pretty hard time trying to figure out how to anticipate something or someone who is already so present in my life… but I think my horizons are widening a tad this year.

Over the last 6 months, I have spent countless hours preparing for this baby. From scouring Kijiji for the best deals, to reading about the safety of different baby products, and imagining how my life is about to change, it has been hours. Or probably days. Maybe even weeks. I’ve been trying to anticipate and prepare for all the needs our child will have. I want him or her to be safe and healthy when we finally bring them home, and, as it turns out, that takes a LOT of preparation. (I’m not much of a planner, and I’m making lists and keeping budgets. Big step.) 

I think as we wait for the coming of Christ, this same process of preparation applies. Just as a child in my womb and eventually a newborn baby requires things from me, so too does Christ. Right now. And what He asks of us matters. 

So, what does He need from me?  In one sense, nothing. He is perfect and complete and all powerful and able to do all things. So He doesn’t need anything. But I’m reminded of St. Teresa of Avila’s words, which remind me that what I do matters.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion
is to look out to the earth,
yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good
and yours are the hands by which He is to bless us now.

In the same way that I have now been entrusted with a new life in my womb and am called to protect and care for it, I have also been entrusted with a mission from God that extends into every moment of my daily life. I’m called to love. Everyone. To be charitable. To give generously. To help until it hurts. Like actually. When is the last time I did something at a serious cost to my own wellbeing or happiness? I’m not sure. But I feel like I shouldn’t have to look back a few weeks in order to find that incident. I hear parenthood challenges any selfishness a person has, but I think knowing Christ should have seriously kick-started this process. 

With a little one on the way, I feel a sense of responsibility – to give this child the love and the faith and the health that I’ve have so abundantly enjoyed for the last 24 years of my life. And with Christ on the way , I feel that responsibility in a broader, but still individual sense – to offer myself completely to the life that He calls me to and the people I meet. To empty myself of selfish habits and give freely of my talents and treasures until He comes again.

I don’t think it’s a passive waiting that Advent is meant to spur us on to. I think it’s very active. Discerning what God asks. And doing it. Actually doing it. So that when He comes, He might look at us with love and call us His good and faithful servants.