December 12, 2011

Feeling Advent-urous

After twenty years of waiting, I became a mom.  After twenty five years of searching, I found a church.  The two have nothing and everything to do with each other. 

There weren't any books that helped me survive the long wait to become a mother.  The Center of Everything was comforting didn't speak directly to the issue.  However, several books did help keep me sane as I searched for a church.  Memoir of a Misfit: Finding My Place in the Family of God by Marcia Ford, The Unauthorized Guide to Choosing a Church by Carmen Renee Berry and If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland all comforted me on that journey. 

Less than six years ago I had given up hope of ever having a child or a church and yet, here I am:  a mom who sends her children to preschool at the UCC church where we are active members.  Sometimes it feels like it happened overnight--but then I look at the calendar (and my gray hair) and realize these good things came to one who waited.  And waited.

Everyone has their own path to follow.  Each path unfolds at it's own rate.  I've always been a "live and let live" kind of person.  In fact, that's what made it so difficult to find the right house of worship.  So, I really tried to hold back on the criticism when I first saw this toy.  But take it from someone who knows what it's like to wait for the most important gifts in life-- this is not an Advent calendar.

Imanginext Advent Calendar by Fisher Price




That's it. That's all I'm going to say.  May everyone celebrate the season in a way that nourishes his or her spirit.  And if you are in a place where a new piece of molded plastic every day for 25 days is comforting--well, God bless.  Just don't call it an Advent calendar. 

5 comments:

  1. I don't know anything about advent, but this smells a whole lot like commercialism!!!!

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  2. We are doing an advent activity each night...first a little story then he gets to open the little advent door. Mostly it contains a peice of candy in each box..its hard to fit things into tiny little boxes. I did manage to find 4 gold dollar coins that are in his box for the 24th.. He half listens to the stories. But he is definitely into it. Whatever works in my book.

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  3. Dude, that just doesn't seem right.

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  4. Yah - we have the LEGO advent calendar, and considering that we've opened a couple of bad guys, several pieces of a police station, a bank robber, a dude with a hatchet and a snowmobile carrying a sled filled with stolen gold bars, I'm not really thinking of it as an advent calendar any more. I'm thinking of it as a way of getting my 4-year-old's butt out of bed every morning so I can get him to school and me to work on time when it's still dark out. :)

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