Waiting

I've been reflecting on waiting with the Christmas season. When I was a kid, December seemed to pass incredibly slowly. My brother and I had advent calendars we would open every year, and it seemed to take months before we would get to open the doors for 24th or 25th. But as an adult, December is a whirlwind that I feel lucky to just survive. This year, on top of the usual busyness of getting out Christmas cards, buying Christmas presents, making cookies for neighbors and going to holiday parties, we had 9 different birthday parties or dinners for family or friends. At this point, the thing I'm looking forward to most at Christmas is resting, something I probably won't get to do in earnest until all the holiday stuff is over.

Just as I've experienced the Christmas season at very different speeds depending on my stage of life, waiting in general can go at very different speeds, depending on what you're waiting for. Things you want never come quickly enough, while things you dread always seem to come expeditiously. Some things we anticipate for short periods of time (a good meal, the next episode of a favorite TV show), others for much longer (finishing school, for example). In the Christmas story itself, people wait for things for very different lengths of time. Given all of the turmoil of Mary's pregnancy, I imagine those months went by fairly rapidly for her and Joseph. John the Baptist's gestation may have dragged bit more for both of his parents, given that his father couldn't speak through the whole thing. The shepherds had to wait very little, apparently, between when the angels announced Jesus' birth and when they met the baby; they "hurried off and found him" right away, it would seem.

The people whose waiting strikes me the most are Simeon and Anna. Both were waiting for the "consolation of Israel", something that both knew they might not see completely fulfilled in their lifetimes, even though Simeon at least knew he would see the Christ before he died. Both did get to experience some of what they were waiting for, but only after decades of waiting and even then, what they saw was a baby, not the complete "redemption of Israel". That kind of waiting, hoping for something that you want without knowing when, how or even if you'll really get it, is as different from my childhood anticipation of Christmas as reading a long, intricate novel is from glancing at a one-panel cartoon. The process is as much the point of the activity as the end is, in many ways.

I relate to Simeon and Anna's waiting a lot more these days. As the two-year mark approaches for Midi and Nathan's deaths, there is a way that what I'm waiting for has changed. Some of the peace and joy I had wanted and anticipated from life doesn't seem possible any more, at least on this side of heaven. So I'm now waiting for something from God that may not come during my lifetime, at least in full, just like Simeon and Anna never experienced the consolation of Israel fully in their lifetimes. But waiting for the delayed good does not necessarily mean the present is bad. I don't think Simeon and Anna would feel like their lives were wasted spent waiting for the Son of God, although their experience of Him was so short. Neither do I feel that I am condemned to a life of misery, even though I am certain that complete joy will be reserved for the time when I will be in the presence of God. The journey there can have its own moments of peace and joy; the process can be as valuable as the end.

I have spent most of this year in a fairly deep season of depression. It has lifted somewhat the last month or two, and while I am not sure if that is a permanent or temporary shift, I am grateful for the mercy of things feeling easier for a time. But even with that lifting, there is still a sense that things will never feel the same as they did before Midi and Nathan's deaths. I may experience good things, see God at work in me and around me, I may live a full life of following God, just as Simeon and Anna did. But I think, like them, I will spend my life waiting for a more complete consolation.