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I need some time with my family members.
During this busy Advent season, it seems like we are all rushing around. Just when one person is arriving, someone else is leaving. Everyone’s meetings and lectures and concerts and work are really beginning to push aside time to be together. There is no time for meaningful conversation, only the occasional quick check-in.
I want to make a date with each person in my family. I want to sit somewhere that there are no distractions and drink a nice cup of cocoa and talk about what is happening in their lives. I want to go for a walk and talk about favorite memories and laugh. I want to decorate the tree and talk about each of the handmade ornaments and remember the little hands that made them.
I want us to be together to light the candles on our Advent wreath and share the excitement as Christmas day approaches. I want us to talk together about the ways our family can work to bear Christ to the world. I want us to prepare our home for the baby Jesus, who is about to be born in each one of us. I want us to prepare our hearts for an infusion of love.
Advent is all about getting ready. It’s all about making space. It’s all about making time. For me, this year, it’s all about going deeper into the mind, heart and soul of each person that I love and finding the new Christ child that is waiting to be born. It’s about nurturing that spark of Jesus that is already present and then rejoicing as the Messiah bursts forth, as each of us brings the light of Christ into the world in his or her own unique, joyful, loving way. I want to be spend time together so we are ready. I don’t want to miss the birth.
