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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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On Advent, Waiting Well, and the Fullness of Time

Dec 13 12 Comments

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are magical and marvelous, busy and bustling. There are gifts to buy and wrap, stockings to hang, cookies to bake, and friends to see. There are Christmas classics to watch while we drink hot cocoa and admire our twinkling trees. Often Christmas Eve and Christmas mark an end to a season whose magic was in the anticipation—the beauty of waiting with great joy, because we know what’s coming, we know who is coming.

The word advent means “coming,” and the season of Advent marks four weeks of waiting for Christ to come. According to the United Methodist Church, Advent is “a season to prepare for the coming of Christ in various meanings: the promised coming of the Messiah to the Jews, the coming of Jesus being born in Bethlehem, the promised return of the risen Christ in final victory, and the continual coming of Christ into the lives and hearts of believers.” Once Christmas Eve arrives, the twelve days of Christmas begin. Christmas doesn’t end—the celebration is just getting started!

In light of this, it struck me as a bit odd that we do our celebrating before, in a space that is meant to be holy and slow, causing us to pause and hold our breath in anticipation. Am I trying to be a Grinch about holiday parties and all manner of festive activities? Nope! I love them, and I’ll keep attending and making merry. But deep in my soul I crave quiet, not Christmas music or cookies, in order to train my mind and my heart on the spirit of the season.

At it's core, Advent is a season of waiting, but we often stuff it to the brim with activities. What would it look like for us to tune in the true spirit of this season? To wait even when it's painful, laborious, and exhausting. To hope even when it's hard.

You see, at its core, Advent is a season of waiting, and so often we fill it to the brim with activities and good, fun things. Take the advent calendar, for example—we fill each day with an activity to get us into the Christmas spirit, but the true spirit of Christmas is one of waiting. On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation: we know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.

But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they heard was . . . nothing. Silence.

Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.

We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. We groan and writhe and wonder when the pain will end, just to be met with fresh wave after fresh wave, the pain intensifying at every turn, until we’re met with more mess and more rawness than we know what to do with. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this phrase, the fullness of time. We read it in Galatians 4:4-5:

When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

The fullness of time makes me think of that perfectly round, fit-to-burst pregnant belly. That mom is aching for sweet relief, for new life. How often I try to skip ahead in my own waiting—to end the wait at the halfness of time, or the three-quarterness of time—because that last bit of waiting . . . it is the most painful of all. We’ve been stretched all we can be stretched. We’ve been made to stand all we can stand. And then we’re called to wait some more.

Advent is that sacred space: the anticipation that comes in the space between pains, the catching our breath and readying our bodies and hearts and minds for what’s next. It is holy and hushed, sweetly relieving. It propels us forward in time toward the main event, to the wholeness and the healing, but in the fullness of time. Not by own our clocks or calendars but by the divine hand of the Lord.

So for this Advent, I find myself returning to some predictable habits to create in me those fresh waves of anticipation.

I’m setting my alarm a bit earlier, carving out sacred space in my favorite chair with my Bible and a journal.

I’m toning down the merry music and filling my ears with traditional hymns.

I’m closing my eyes and remembering the pain of labor, reminding myself of Mary’s sacrifice, of the world’s collective groaning, of the work it takes to wait well.

I’m sitting in the heartbreak of Advent, remembering that in order for our weary world to rejoice fully, we have to steep in the sadness. To appreciate the coming of the light, we have to endure the darkness.

I’m looking toward the birth of Christ with great anticipation, with great hope, and with a new appreciation for the fullness of God’s time.

And I’m reflecting on the pains our world is enduring as we wait for another advent, another coming of Christ. Bifrost Arts Music puts it this way:

In labor all creation groans till fear and hatred cease,
Till human hearts come to believe: in Christ alone is peace.” 

This is what we’re waiting for, friends. We’re waiting for the calm after the coming, the peace after the pain. We’re waiting for fear and division and the pain of being broken open to subside and give way to unity, healing, and wholeness.

Let us wait well and with great expectation this Advent season.

Let us wait well and with great expectation this #Advent season. Click To Tweet

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Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: advent, christmas, faith, God, Jesus, joy, pregnancy, waiting

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
The last day of school hit different this year. 💔 My tears at kindergarten graduation were not about how my first baby is growing up too fast. They were tears of gratitude that she’s growing up at all—something that should not feel spectacular, but does.

Swipe for some first day/last day comparisons and an outtake that I adore. 💜
There was a huge, complete rainbow outside Eamon’s bedroom window after his birthday party, and I can’t think of a better celestial celebration for our rainbow baby/big boy. 🌈
Our little Eamon baby is 3! 🎉 Though he will be Our little Eamon baby is 3! 🎉 Though he will be the first to tell you that he is not a baby—he is Eamon Boy, and he is a big kid.

Eamon is sweet and wild and silly and will do anything for a laugh, instantly charming everyone he meets. He is just as likely to tackle you as he is to request a hug and a kiss.

Eamon talks all the time and stretches out the last word of every sentence like it’s a question, but he also loves to communicate with roars and growls. No surface or object is safe around him, as he climbs and jumps off everything and will declare anything from a pillow to a plate his “rock” and throw it like he’s an Earth Giant in Frozen (we’re working on it).

He is obsessed with Dan, smitten with Selah, and thinks I’m just okay, at best—but he is my best buddy if the other two are unavailable.

This past year, Eamon went to Six Flags, Lake Geneva, and Disney World, and he has mastered his balance bike. Basically, he always wants to go fast and/or get as close to flying as possible.

Eamon, you are pure joy and delight, the brightest ray of sunshine, and the dreamiest rainbow baby. Happy birthday, my sweet boy! ☀️🌈💜
Or, “What does it say about me that the first po Or, “What does it say about me that the first poem I’ve written in a year is a list of things that make up my personal hell and I actually had to cut this down because I had so many/too many thoughts on the topic?” It’s fine, everything is fine.
This year was absolutely brutal. It also facilitat This year was absolutely brutal. It also facilitated some of the best decisions of my life, many born out of deep pain. Starting a new job, because the old one no longer fit. Getting vaccinated, to protect myself and others as we muddle through another pandemic year. All but quitting writing and social media, because I simply didn’t want to do it anymore. Most importantly, starting on Zoloft, because I needed it desperately. Those tiny blue pills quite literally saved my life.

The first half of 2021 was one of my darkest seasons, and the second half—thanks to modern medicine and my own intuition and the possibility of remote work, thanks to Selah starting kindergarten and me taking care of myself and being able to look at my kids and truly delight in them for the first time in a long time—was one of my happiest ever.

Holding both halves tenderly as we cross this next threshold. 💜
Selah Marie is 6! She started kindergarten this ye Selah Marie is 6! She started kindergarten this year and firmly entered world of big kids. Her confidence in every area has skyrocketed, from climbing her new playground to sounding out words to talking to new friends. She blows us away every day with her kind heart, generous spirit, and innate sense of empathy. She is tenderhearted, curious, affectionate, and hard to impress, and we adore her more every day. Happy birthday, Selah! 🧁 🎉 💜
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